


The Forest Chose Me

by anwenwrites



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 43,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24578899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anwenwrites/pseuds/anwenwrites
Summary: Duncan King has had it rough his whole life: his dad left before he was born, leaving him and his mom to live in a run-down apartment surrounded by ugly buildings. To give Duncan a hope of a better life, his mother sends him to live with her middle-income brother, Jacob. It's here that Duncan develops his love for the outdoors, which carves the path to his calling in life.
Kudos: 2





	1. Uncle Jacob's House

Here's the thing about my Uncle Jacob's one-floor house: it isn't much, but it'd be an upgrade. Much better to live with your low-income uncle in his tiny but sturdy house than in a dirty three-room apartment with your mother who won't stop ranting about how your father left eleven years ago before you were even born. I know she suffers, but I don't let myself dwell on the negatives. If I did I'd probably dig myself a hole in the ground, crawl into it, and never come out. There're just too many negatives to dwell on: Mom and I are poor; we live in this dilapidated apartment, barely one step away from living on the street; Mom's always sick; I'm frail as a bone; and on top of all that, the only view I have as I'm falling asleep every night is the Sydney Opera House. Which actually  _ forces  _ me to shut my eyes, because that thing is the biggest eyesore in history. Why do humans feel the need to clog up every inch of free land they see with development? Can't they see that not everyone can afford a house?

But anyway. That isn't why I'm leaving my mother today. It wasn't my choice. Last week, the gas station down the street decided they didn't need her anymore, so she sat me down at our scrap of a table and said, "Duncan, I can't afford to support both of us, so I'm sending you to live with your Uncle Jacob in Canberra."

Don't ask me how Uncle Jacob came to have an actual job and house while my mother didn't. I have no idea. He has enough to support me, but not both me and Mom. So Mom brought me to his house, and we're standing on his driveway right now.

"Now you do just what Uncle Jacob tells you to, okay?" she says, handing me my backpack.

"I will, Mom, don't worry," I say. "Are you sure you can take care of yourself?"

"Duncan, I thought I said not to worry about me." She tries to look stern, but in spite of herself her eyes shine. She looks rather blurry, too.

"I can't help it," I say. "When will I see you again?"

"I don't know," Mom replies. She pulls me into a tight hug and doesn't let go for a long time. I don't want her to ever let go. Eventually she does, though, and instructs me to go into the house.

"Aren't you going to come in too? Say hello to Uncle Jacob?" I ask.

Mom shakes her head. "I'll be too tempted to stay, and I know Uncle Jacob can't afford that. He's offered all he has, but it's only enough for either you or me, and I want you to have it. I'll be okay." She reaches over and brushes the hair that's always falling in my face behind my ear.

"Okay," I say, but I don't believe her. Still, there's nothing I can do to change her mind. She takes my hand in her own and says, "I love you, Duncan."

"I love you too, Mom. Be safe."

Mom hugs me one last time and gets in her ratty old pickup truck. I don't see her drive away because I can't stand to watch her go. Instead I look at the house. It's small, that's for sure, but it doesn't look cramped. It looks almost... _ cozy _ . Like a little cottage. I don't know. For some reason I still don't want to go in. I've never met Uncle Jacob before.

Here's the thing about people: they start off pretty nice, but as soon as they realize you're not rich, or well-respected, or  _ normal _ , they look down on you. They look down on you because you're not one of them. If you ask me, society is overrated.  _ Obviously  _ there are people who don't fit in but still survive. Just barely, maybe, but we do survive. And then there are the people who don't scoff at you to your face, but instead talk down on you like you're five years old because they can see you're dirt poor and pity you for it. Those people are the  _ worst.  _ I hate them. If you're not actually going to help someone in need, why even bother pretending to be nice?

Uncle Jacob can't be one of those people, right? He's no millionaire either. I hope caring for me doesn't cost him what he does have.

I stare at the house a moment longer before thinking I might as well go in. I start to walk up the dirt driveway, which is long enough for me to muster the courage to knock on the wooden door when I reach the house.

A figure moves. I hear shuffling inside. The doorknob turns. The door swings open, revealing a middle-aged man dressed in jean cutoffs and a clean T-shirt.

"Hello there!" he says. "You must be Duncan. I'm your Uncle Jacob. Come on in; you look exhausted. Can I take your backpack for you?"

"No, thank you," I say. I don't trust anyone with my backpack. All I have is in that thing.

"How was your trip here?" Uncle Jacob asks.

"Bumpy, but otherwise fine," I say. "Long though. Four hours."

"That's quite a drive."

"So this is what a real kitchen looks like? Pots and pans and all?"

"I guess this one counts. I hope you're not disappointed."

"No, of course not! Thank you for letting me stay here. I mean it."

"Of course you're welcome. Sit down. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?" Uncle Jacob opens his refrigerator.

"Yes, please." I sit down at the kitchen table. Even though I get carsick a lot and had spent most of the trip here on the verge of throwing up, now I'm starving. I think it has something to do with the big bowl of fruit staring at me from the middle of the table. Or maybe the big loaf of bread on the counter. Or  _ maybe  _ it's the refrigerator, filled with so much food that for once I could take as much as I wanted and not worry there wouldn't be enough for both Mom and me.

Uncle Jacob asks, "Okay, then, what would you like to have?"

"What're those?" I point to some red and green oval objects in the fruit bowl.

Uncle Jacob's eyes widen. "You've never seen mangoes before?"

"Nope."

"Well, then, I'll have to slice you one. They're very good. Loved them since I was just a kid myself. Your mother too. I'm surprised she never got them for you."

"Too expensive," I say. We couldn't afford fresh fruit. If we were lucky we got three loaves of bread, four boxes of cereal, two pounds of meat, and maybe a gallon of milk to last us a week.

Uncle Jacob sighs. "I wish I could support you both, but our own parents had only so much money to leave us. I'm lucky to have my job as an interpreter."

"You're an interpreter? Mom never mentioned that."

"Yep. Travel all over Indonesia helping Western tourists find their way around. Not a very high-paying job, but it keeps me on my financial feet."

"Ah," I say. "But why Indonesia?"

"Dialects," says Uncle Jacob. "Indonesian has a lot of them. But there is one standard version that everyone speaks on the streets. I encourage tourists and natives to speak that version to each other. I know it isn't polite to do so, but I can't stand to see society broken up by so many language barriers. It's my job to break those barriers and bring people together."

"Why would you want to do that?" I ask. People bother me a lot. I can never be around too many at once.

Uncle Jacob places a glass of milk and a big bowl of sliced orange fruit in front of me. "Because," he says, sitting down across from me, "the world would be a better place if we would all just accept that we're not that different from each other and work together."

"I guess I agree with that," I say, "but wouldn't someone appreciate it if you tried to speak his or her language, even if you made mistakes? I mean, that sort of thing brings people together."

Uncle Jacob nods. "You're right," he says, "but I'm thinking of society as a whole. You're thinking of relationships with one other person, which are also important."

"I see," I say, and take my first bite of the fruit in front of me. It's  _ really  _ good, kind of sweet and tangy at the same time. I shove the rest of the slice into my mouth. Juice dribbles down my chin, and I wipe my forearm across my face.

"Here's a napkin, kid," Uncle Jacob chuckles, handing me a paper towel. I clean up my face, but it's no use because I shove in another slice in one piece and wash it down with a big gulp of milk. I've never had milk as only part of a meal before. I pick up two more slices of fruit and finish those in several bites as well.

As I'm eating my fifth slice I remember that it's rude to scarf your food down at the table in front of other people. Normally when I scarf, it's because Mom couldn't afford our dinner so I'm trying to eat before anyone notices we stole from the grocery store bar.

"Sorry, Uncle Jacob," I say when my mouth isn't full anymore.

"Don't apologize, kid; you need it."

I eat the rest of my snack more slowly. When I'm done Uncle Jacob asks, "How did you like the mango, kid?"

I ask him a question of my own. "That's what you and Mom ate?"

"Yep. She liked 'em even more than I did."

I frown at my empty bowl. "I wish I could take some to her."

Uncle Jacob says, "Poor Emily. Life has gone downhill for her ever since she met your father. Chris didn't have a job, yet he was out frequenting bars and sapping Emily of what little money she had. Terrible gambler, that guy. Eventually took to getting drunk every night too. Then he'd beat Emily around. It scared her so bad she wouldn't leave him. Said she was terrified he'd do something to her. It put a real strain on her and our parents' relationship, that she wouldn't leave him. Eventually  _ he  _ left  _ her _ , but that wasn't until after our parents died. They only left her five hundred dollars. Their own daughter. Can you believe it?"

"No," I say. "I thought grandparents were supposed to  _ help  _ your parents."

"Turns out that's not always the case," says Uncle Jacob. "They left the rest to me, despite my efforts to dissuade them. Damn obstinate people, my parents were. I guess you had to be to survive with what we had. I tried to give Emily half of what our parents left me, but she refused it. Said there was more hope for a successful interpreter than for a poor beaten down woman who refused to leave an abusive boyfriend. She really let herself go off the deep end, I think."

For a long moment I stare down at my bowl, which is becoming blurrier by the second. I've always wanted to meet my father, but after hearing this I don't ever want to. Plus I'm angry at Mom. Why did she let herself sink further and further into the hole she was in? She could have avoided our having to separate!

Uncle Jacob asks, "You all right, Duncan?"

"Yeah. And I really liked the mango. Thank you." I change the subject because I don't want to cry in front of my uncle.

"You're welcome. Let me show you to your room."

My room is right across the hall from Uncle Jacob's. It's small, but who needs a big space to sleep in? It's neat too. I sit down on the bed and start unpacking my clothes and toothbrush.

"I'll leave you to unpack," says Uncle Jacob. If you need anything, just take it."

"All right. Thanks."

After he leaves, I abandon my backpack and peer outside the window. I hear and see only quiet and trees. No more noise. No more Sydney Opera House.

I clutch a hand to my chest, which feels heavy and empty at the same time. No more opera house means no more opera house, which is good, but it also means no more home and no more Mom. This is home now. I wonder how Mom's holding up without me. I hope she gets a new job. I hope she turns her life around. I hope I see her again. I wish she was never separated from me in the first place. I wish she was here.

I crawl into the bed and pull the blankets over my head. Whenever I did this at home, Mom knew I was upset. She'd rub my back through the blankets, and then pull them away just a little, and then a few minutes later she'd pull them back a little more, and then a few minutes later even more until I started laughing. Once I laughed she'd pull them all the way off and hug me for a long time.

The thought of our blankets game is enough to make me yank my blankets under my face, weighing them down with my head. Because even though I'm angry at Mom, as long as she isn't here to pull them away, I can't imagine ever laughing again.


	2. Bird Calls

One Year Later

"That's it, Duncan!" Uncle Jacob pats me on the back while I imitate the Australian king-parrot's high-pitched whistle. A few seconds later, I hear an answering call.

"Wow," says Uncle Jacob. "Third try! You're really good at this, Duncan."

I beam, glad that Uncle Jacob seems pleased. I've been living with him for a year now, and about once a week, he takes me into the woods to feed the birds. I've been all over Indonesia with him, but my favorite place to birdwatch is our backyard. Though before I never enjoyed the outdoors; in my old home, it was difficult to tell where the outdoors ended and the indoors began. But things are different here. Uncle Jacob's house actually shelters us from the wind and rain and here, now that I can choose between the outdoors and the indoors, I don't think I'd mind "roughing it" too much. Our house is surrounded by towering pines as far as the eye can see, with only a few occasional homes dotting the tranquil landscape. It's so different from Sydney. There, everywhere I looked there were drab buildings, each identical to the last. And I bet they cut down a whole bunch of trees to make space for those buildings. That'd explain why there were no birds or anything there.

Actually, the forest has been a little short on birds lately. That's why Uncle Jacob and I decided to do bird calls today—to see if there really are as few as we think. Uncle Jacob has trouble, but I think it's easy. If you really listen to the birds and do your best to reply, it's really quite simple. I don't know why it's so difficult for Uncle Jacob. He's so talented at learning new languages, and bird calls really aren't that different.

I respond to another king-parrot's call, and he answers back, his call closer this time. After following his call to a nearby tree, I make the call again, better than I ever have before. And now I'm rewarded for my dedication: I hear fluttering, and seconds later, a little king-parrot perches on a branch less than ten feet from me.

"There!" I exclaim in a hushed whisper, grabbing Uncle Jacob's sleeve and pointing at the bird.

Uncle Jacob whips up his binoculars and sighs, "Wow, she's a real beauty."

"He," I correct him.

"How can you tell?"

"From his call," I reply, squinting at the bird. It's a little hard to see without the binoculars, but it looks like the king-parrot's breast is red, its beak pointed...that's a male, right? I'm fairly certain, but still...

Uncle Jacob claps me on the back, jarring me from my thoughts, and says,"Duncan, that's quite impressive. You sure you've never tried bird calls before?"

"I'm sure," I reply with a strained smile. It wasn't like Mom had the time or money to take me anywhere—we were grateful to just have food on the table. I sigh, then paste a fake smile on my face. Uncle Jacob couldn't have known. "I'm just a quick learner, I guess. I must have picked a lot up from our other birdwatching trips. Now, can I get a better look?"

"All yours." Uncle Jacob hands the binoculars to me, and I immediately begin to study the bird. His head is completely red, so I was right: he's definitely a male. He calls again, and this time another bird—a female king-parrot—responds. Her call is different, more guttural. I follow the male with my binoculars as he flies to her tree, and then a flash of black catches my eye. Tracking it, I discover a magpie nest at the top of the tree. A female magpie—the black blur I spotted earlier—is perched next to her nest, inside of which are four baby birds. The mother bird gently puts her beak into the mouth of one of the babies, feeding him. When she's done, the baby flutters his little wings with pleasure as the other babies begin crowding her, their own mouths open impossibly wide.

"Look!" I gasp, thrusting the binoculars into Uncle Jacob's hands. "The magpies!"

Uncle Jacob puts the binoculars to his eyes, watching the birds; a few seconds later, his mouth falls slightly open. "What a treat," he breathes. "That was spectacular."

I clap my hands together quietly, feeling as giddy as a six-year-old on Christmas morning. "I know, isn't it amazing?"

Uncle Jacob chuckles and hands the binoculars back to me. "Here, why don't you enjoy the view, kid? I'm glad you're having fun. Sometimes I worry you'll get bored around here."

I frown at him, confused as to why he would even think that. "What do you mean?"

Uncle Jacob pauses, clearly unsure of what to say next. After contemplating me for a few moments, he finally says, "You're homeschooled. You never play with those kids down the street, and I can't be that much fun. Sometimes I wonder if you're missing out on childhood. Where's the excitement? Where's the joy of discovery? I don't want you to look back years from now and feel like you grew up too fast."

"Oh." I look down at the ground, not really sure how to respond. Growing up in poverty, I'd been forced to grow up too fast. More importantly, though, I never really had heart-to-heart talks with Mom, and thinking of having one with Uncle Jacob makes me uncomfortable. I hesitate, not meeting his eyes, but in the end I decide to just tell him what's bothering me. I do owe him something for having taken me in, and maybe that something is my trust.

"I don't mind being homeschooled," I begin. "It's just that—hold on a sec." I quickly bring the binoculars back up to my eyes, hoping to convince Uncle Jacob there's just something interesting to see. But there isn't; the mother and father birds have already left the nest. Besides, my eyes have suddenly become so blurry I doubt I even  _ could  _ see anything if it were there. I don't want to worry Uncle Jacob by telling him about the neighborhood kids, but at the same time I'm tempted because it would feel good to let it out.

I must not have fooled Uncle Jacob, though, for he gently places a hand on my shoulder. "What's wrong, Duncan?" he asks.

I sigh and lower the binoculars from my eyes. "It's just that—" I begin, "—I...I...dontreallyliketheneighborhoodkids," I finish in one quick, garbled sentence.

Uncle Jacob understands, though. He crouches down to my level—which I would hate if he weren't my uncle and didn't look so sincere—and asks, "Do they tease you?"

"No," I say. "I just don't like the way they look at me. Like, just because I grew up poor and live with my uncle, I don't belong. Not just in their group of friends. I don't care about that. I mean like in this world. I don't care about finding a place in society, but I want to find my place in this world."

Uncle Jacob gives me a long look, as though he's trying to wrap his head around my words. I can't imagine why it would be so hard; after all, I'm only twelve. Finally, he says, more to himself than to me, "I guess it really is true, what they say about kids saying deep things." Then he focuses his eyes—which I never even noticed until now are the same honey brown as mine—on me and says, "Well, if you don't care about fitting in with them, what should it matter whether they think you belong or not? 'Course you do. It's everyone's world. It can't belong to one group of people. There's a place in it for everyone, no matter how different they are."

"Thanks, Uncle Jacob," I reply, wiping my eyes dry. "I guess I never thought of it that way."

Uncle Jacob nods empathetically. "Tell me, Duncan," he says, "what's wrong with growing up poor and living with your uncle?" He's smiling, and Uncle Jacob almost never smiles.

"Well, it's…" I begin, but stop when I realize I don't have an answer. I look back down at the ground for a long moment, thinking. At last I look back up at Uncle Jacob and say, "Nothing."

He nods once. "Right. I know it can be tough, feeling like there's no place for you in the world. But there most definitely is." He stands back up and starts walking deeper into the woods. "C'mon, let's go for a walk," he suggests.

I nod and follow; I love these woods. Leaves rustle as birds flit from branch to branch, and the constantly shifting pattern of sunlight on the forest floor is mesmerizing. However, one thing is ruining the tranquility of this moment: the itch of an unanswered question. I try to push the matter from my mind, but after five minutes admit defeat.

"Uncle Jacob," I ask, "How do I find my place?"

Uncle Jacob sighs. "Another question I can't answer," he whispers, more to himself than to me. Then he shakes his head and begins striding deeper into the forest. "Come along, kid, we haven't got all day."

But I don't let the matter drop. I need  _ some  _ kind of an answer. After catching up to Uncle Jacob, I repeat, "How do I find my place?"

But Uncle Jacob only mutters, "Come on, kid, we've got to get moving."

However, I plant myself in the middle of the forest and say, "No. Either tell me how I find my place, or—" I pause, casting around for a suitable alternative. "Or tell me how you found yours," I finish triumphantly.

This time Uncle Jacob stops, though he doesn't turn around to face me. Instead, he stares out toward the sun, which is low in the sky. But even though I technically  _ should  _ be in bed by now, it's still out. It's slipped behind a cloud, turning it pink, and the rest of the sky is already a deep indigo. Twilight is falling.

"I guess," Uncle Jacob begins, causing me to turn and look up at him. "I did what I loved, and that was enough. Even though my parents pushed me to sing and dance, I pursued my own dreams. I didn't want to be famous and make lots of money. I couldn't sing, and I certainly couldn't dance." He chuckles at the thought, then sobers. "Not only was I exceptionally untalented in the field of performing arts," he continues, "I had no desire to work with the actors and actresses. Let me tell you, kid, they were  _ really  _ self-absorbed. All they wanted was fame and money. There was no feeling of unity whatsoever. I didn't want to spend my life like that. So you know what I did? Ignored my parents' wishes and pursued my passion for foreign languages. I became fluent in six languages in five years, and from then on out I've worked as an interpreter. It's amazing work, but takes a hell of a lot of dedication. So have have to ask you, Duncan, what do you want to dedicate your life to?"

I bite my lip. How am I supposed to answer this? "I don't know."

"That's perfectly normal," Uncle Jacob replies. "You still have plenty of time. At your age, you just start discovering what you like and what you don't. Even I didn't start studying foreign languages until I was fourteen."

"Really?" I ask. "Then how'd you learn so many?" In the year I've been living with him, I"ve heard him speak Indonesian, German, Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, and more, without ever needing to consult a dictionary.

With a smirk, Uncle Jacob replies, "Practice."

"But still," I say, "how? When you teach me Spanish, I can't retain any of it. I know it when I hear it, but that's it. I can't understand a thing."

"People have different talents. Look how you pick up on bird calls. I certainly couldn't do that. I mean, that's quite a gift right there. Did you ever think of that?"

"No," I reply, my spirits lifted. But after a moment's thought, I frown and ask, "How would mimicking birds help me find my place in the world?"

Uncle Jacob smiles. "Now, that's up to you."

At this point it's almost dark, but there's a little bit of light left, enough that I can see the baby bird lying on the ground before I step on him.

"Whoa!" I exclaim, jumping over the bird and crouching down beside him.

"What is it, kid?" Uncle Jacob kneels beside me.

"It's this baby bird," I say. "He's just lying here. I almost stepped on him. I think he's hurt!"

"Let me see." Uncle Jacob takes the bird in his hands, careful not to hurt him. He studies the bird for a moment, and his eyebrows draw together suspiciously. With his thumb, he touches the bird's right wing, and the bird makes a noise that sounds like a newborn's cry.

"Don't do that!" I exclaim. "His wing must be broken."

"I bet you're right." Uncle Jacob shakes his head. "Poor little guy. Do you think he fell out of the nest?"

"Probably," I say, studying the bird myself. "But he's not one of the babies we were watching earlier. Those were king-parrots. He's a magpie."

Uncle Jacob says sadly, "I don't know if there's anything we can do for him."

"We can't just let him die!" I protest. "We have to do something. We should do what the bird book says: set his wing and keep him comfortable and well-fed. He'll let us know when it's time for him to leave."

Uncle Jacob hesitates. "Well, I guess we could try," he finally says. "But what will we feed him?"

"We can buy bird food at the pet store," I suggest. Then I begin fiddling with the bird's wing, trying to set it.

Half an hour later, I finally feel the bones click back into place and the bird let out a quiet sigh. I've done it! I've set the wing! I rise to my feet, careful not to jostle the bird, and nod to Uncle Jacob. He nods back and takes his keys out of his pocket. "Let's go, kid."

Before I know it, I'm sitting in the passenger's seat of Uncle Jacob's faded Chevrolet, the bird in a shoebox in my lap. He chirps pitifully, and when I spot a veterinary clinic shining like a beacon in the darkness, I tug Uncle Jacob's sleeve. "Let's go there," I say, pointing at it.

"Kid," Uncle Jacob replies, giving me an incredulous look, "It's very late." He peers at the faint green numbers on the dashboard and adds, "In fact, it's past midnight. Twenty-three past midnight, to be exact."

"I know, I know. But the bird needs help. and maybe we could even buy some bird food while we're there. And—" I stop, trying to push the other option out of my mind. Because while they may help the bird, the vets may also conjure up some elaborate, expensive, and entirely useless, treatment plan for him. People are greedy and conniving; that's one lesson I learned from living with my mother.

Uncle Jacob glances over at me. "And what?"

"Nothing," I answer. "But can we  _ pleeeaaaase  _ go in?"

"Fine," Uncle Jacob relents, turning into clinic's parking lot. "I guess it'd be cruel to do otherwise."

I grin, and no sooner than we walk into the clinic that a man comes to the counter, no doubt drawn by the tinkling of the bells adorning the door, and greets us with a tired sigh. "Hello," he says in an unfamiliar accent. How may I help you this evening?"

I approach the counter and show the man the bird. "My uncle and I found this little magpie on the ground. His wing looked broken, so I set it. But it'd still be nice if you could take a look at it." I look over at Uncle Jacob, then add, "We'd also like to buy some bird food."

"Great," the man says, "We have some over there." He gestures to the corner, where opened bags of cat food, dog kibble, and bird food spill out onto the floor. "Just fill up a plastic bag or something before you leave. Now, why don't you show me your bird, boy?"

After an intense inner struggle—I don't trust this man not to hurt the bird—I place the shoebox into his hands. "You better take good care of him," I warn the old man.

"Duncan!" Uncle Jacob scolds me, hurrying to the counter. "Don't be so rude."

"Sorry," I mutter, completely unrepentant.

However, the man only chuckles. "You've got guts, boy. Something a lot of young'uns are lacking these days. And don't worry. He'll be in good hands. Remember, I'm a vet." He starts walking toward the back of the clinic, and motions for us to follow. As we go, he adds, "I know how you feel, kid. I've got three dogs of my own. Last year one of them had puppies, and I had no idea how to help her. So I had to stand back while my sister's friend helped her. It was real difficult. But I knew it was for the best." He sets the shoebox on an examining table, picks up the bird, and feels his wing. "Yep, his wing's broken, all right," he confirms. "Though you did do a wonderful job setting it."

"Really?" I ask, raising my eyebrows. I'm always suspicious of strangers who praise me. How can they know me well enough to mean it?

"Duncan," Uncle Jacob warns, squeezing my elbow.

"Sorry," I mutter again, looking down at the ground.

But the vet doesn't seem to care. He says, "Really. And for a bird this small, that's not an easy thing to do."

This time, I don't give Uncle Jacob another chance to chastise me. "Thanks," I say, smiling at the vet. Hopefully he can't tell it's a grimace in disguise. I add, "What will you do now?"

"I'm going to bandage his wing, since you already set it," the vet replies. "Then I'm going to run a few mandatory tests, just to make sure he's safe for humans to be around. Once I'm sure he won't make you sick, you and your uncle can take him home."

The vet spends a few minutes examining the bird, and with each prick and prod, I draw in a sharp, panicked breath. I must be blue in the face by the time the vet finishes examining the bird, places him back in the shoebox, and says, "This little guy's all ready for you to take home. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to call. Now," he says, walking out of the room, carrying the shoebox in his hands, "My price."

He already rang us up. Of course he did. I hurry after him and ask, "How much will it be?"

The vet answers without turning around, "That'll be ninety-five. Cash or credit?"

I glance back at Uncle Jacob, who looks taken aback. However, with an air of weariness, he reaches into his pocket for his wallet and says, "I prefer to pay in cash." In five long strides he catches up to the vet, surpasses him, and places a wad of cash on the counter.

"Great," says the vet, placing the shoebox on the counter. "Have a nice evening. Then he returns to the back of the shop pocketing Uncle Jacob's money.

As soon as he's gone, I snatch the shoebox and cradle it to my body. Narrowing my eyes at the vet's retreating form—I knew he was being "nice" for a reason; he was just playing on my feelings—I mutter to Uncle Jacob, "He was a jerk."

Uncle Jacob snorts. "Perhaps, but it's no longer our problem. Come on kid." He places his hand on my shoulder. "Grab some bird food, and then let's go home."

I do so, and as we're leaving the shop the vet returns to the counter. "Goodbye!" he calls after us. "Come back soon!"

I roll my eyes and let the door slam behind me. Thank goodness I never have to see this man again.

Still, I think, turning the visit over on my head, his accent was interesting. It was different, and much nicer than the grating Australian accent I've always wanted to shake. I think I've finally discovered how I want to talk.

"Can you believe that guy? Ringing us up without us knowing. How rude!" I vent to Uncle Jacob as we're cruising on the highway. I don't like the highway. Too many cars.

I continue, "The only thing decent about the vet was his accent. Where was it from?"

"Sounded like an American accent," says Uncle Jacob. "Somewhere from the mountains in Vermont, I reckon."

"Where's Vermont?" I grimace as I ask; I bet everyone there acts just like the vet.

"In the northeast of the country, also called New England. I've never been, but I've had clients from there. They all say it's cold. They even get snow."

"Snow is cool." I smile, wishing I could go somewhere that cold. "But his accent was even cooler. I guess he was a decent guy. He was nice to the bird, and that's what matters." I stare down at the bird in the shoebox. He's asleep.

"There now, I like how you're thinking, Duncan." Uncle Jacob nods. "That is what's most important. I'll get another paycheck, but this bird has only one life."

I smirk, then mimic the vet's accent: "So let's make it a good one. For ninety-five dollars a week."

Uncle Jacob whips around to look at me, almost veering off the road as he does so. Behind us, people honk their horns.

"Whoa, watch out Uncle Jacob!" I exclaim, checking to see if the bird is all right. Thankfully, he's still asleep; even the sudden movement of the car hadn't jostled him.

"Sorry." Uncle Jacob focuses back on the road. "I just...I can't believe how American you sounded! It was just like the vet!"

"Huh. Maybe I should try talking like this," I say in the accent again. I already like my voice a lot better this way.

"If you want," says Uncle Jacob, pulling into his dirt driveway. "I think I could even get you on the phone with one of my American clients. She's a sweet lady, and planning a trip up here soon. She's from New England, and could help you with your accent. Whaddya say, kid?"

After a long moment, I reply hesitantly, "I guess that'd be all right," Then I nod to myself and add, "Yes, I'd really appreciate it. Just as long as she doesn't demand money."

Chuckling, Uncle Jacob reaches over and tousles my hair. "Kid, it's been a long day. Why don't you go get ready for bed? I'll take care of the bird."

"No," I protest, only poorly stifling a yawn. "I want to do it."

Uncle Jacob turns the car off and chuckles again. "Well, okay. Then let's take our special patient inside before his caretaker falls asleep."

"Sounds like a plan," I reply, jumping out of the car and bounding down the driveway into the house, shoebox once again clutched safely to my chest.

The weeks fly by as I feed the bird, clean his cage, and regularly check up on his wing. Finally, the day comes for him to leave. I pull his bandage off, inspect the shiny new feathers on his wing, and ask, "Are you all ready to go, little guy?"

The bird flutters his wing experimentally, then lifts off, coming to land on my shoulder. Taking this as an affirmative, I run my index finger over his fuzzy head and confide, "Oh, I'll sure miss you." In response, he nuzzles my palm. Can he really understand me?

"Duncan?" Uncle Jacob's voice comes from the other side of my bedroom door.

"Come in!" I call, taking the bird into my hand. "I'm about ready to go. And I know for sure that he is." I chuckle at the bird, who's now hopping in my hand, and go to open the door.

Uncle Jacob walks in, camera in hand. "I'm glad you're ready," he replies. "You know, I was a little worried about you. It can be hard to let someone you've cared for go, no matter how much you know they need to fly on their own wings." He smiles sadly, and I realize he's thinking of my other, his little sister, and how he had to let her love her own life without his interference. He gives a gusty sigh and says, "Okay, Duncan, do this. It's already past time."

"It is," I agree. Yesterday, when I was playing with the bird, he kept trying to fly out the door, and the last time, he almost succeeded. I knew then it was time for him to leave.

Uncle Jacob, the bird, and I all go outside. A few rays of sun are peeking out from behind a thick layer of gray clouds. We walk until we reach the spot where I first found the bird. I sigh. He's gotten a lot bigger just in the four weeks he's been here. His wing healed pretty quickly, too. And he even learned to come for food when he wanted it; after two weeks, I no longer had to dropper-feed him. As well as healing, it looks like he's learned important life skills. I hope he'll be able to fend for himself. I wish he could stick around longer. But it's time for him to go.

I look up at the tree in front of me and draw the bird a little closer to my chest; I held him like that the whole way there. That tree must be his home; I can see the nest up there.

"Well?" says Uncle Jacob. "Shall we do this?"

"Yeah," I say. I blink the blur out of my eyes and uncurl my hands.

The bird immediately flies out of my hands, but he doesn't fly away. He hovers over me and Uncle Jacob for a second. Then he flies onto my shoulder and nuzzles me again, and then he finally flies away, up into the nest. Uncle Jacob and I wave until he becomes a black dot and dissipates into the distance.

"Well, that's that, I guess," sighs Uncle Jacob. "Sure was a nice bird."

"He was," I agree. "I mean, he is." Instinctively, I hold my hands back up to my chest. But they're empty, and my chest starts to feel tight and a lump rises in my throat. I swallow hard, but the lump doesn't go away. Seconds later, I feel my cheeks get damp.

Uncle Jacob notices, too. "There now," he says gently, pulling me into a tight hug. Is this how fathers comfort their sons? I throw my arms around his middle and bury my face in his chest. He rubs my back, but doesn't say anything else as I cry into his shirt a little. I'm glad he doesn't say anything else. Somehow, words only get to you more than they should if they're used to hurt you, and not to comfort you.

Eventually I pull myself together and let go of Uncle Jacob. He lets me go, too, looks at me a little sadly, and says, "I'm sorry, kid, but you did the right thing. Ready to go back?"

I nod, wipe my arm across my eyes, and as we start walking back to the house, slip my hand into his. Just this once.


	3. My Last Time in Sydney

One Year Later

"Uncle Jacob! I'm back!" I call from the doorway, stomping my rain-soaked boots on the frayed old rug. I take off my raincoat and bring it into the bathroom to dry, expecting to hear Uncle Jacob on the phone in his office, or maybe brushing up on his Mandarin. But his office is empty and the lights are out. His bedroom door, though, is cracked open ajar, and light peeks through. Odd. I hang up my raincoat and approach Uncle Jacob's room. It's when I'm halfway there from the bathroom that I hear the crying.

"Uncle Jacob?" I hurry to the door and knock. "What's wrong?"

Heavy footsteps come from inside Uncle Jacob's room, and a second later he swings the door open, his face red and his hair disheveled. I've never felt more scared, not even when I first came to live with him. What could possibly have happened that would cause my normally stoic uncle to be in such a state? I've  _ never  _ seen him cry before.

Without warning he envelops me in a bone-crushing hug, hanging on like he's caught in the world's strongest riptide and I'm the only thing keeping him afloat. "Duncan," he sobs into my shoulder; just at hearing his voice so broken, my eyes prick with tears as well, and I don't even know what happened. Instinctively, I hug him back, and ask again, "What's wrong?"

Uncle Jacob doesn't say anything, just puts a hand on my shoulder and urges me to sit down on his bed. He takes my hands in his and gives it to me straight:

"Duncan, your mother is dead."

I stare back at him, not comprehending.

When a long moment passes and I'm still staring silently at Uncle Jacob, he says, "Her neighbor called a while ago. She died yesterday evening, from lung problems."

I still stare at him, this disheveled, red-eyed Uncle Jacob who told me my mother died. I don't recognize this person. My mom can't be dead. She would have found a way to call me if she were dying. This must be a bad dream, or maybe I slipped in a puddle outside and hit my head.

_ Outside.  _ Uncle Jacob stares at my face, and for whatever reason, his own red face screws up again. That does it for me. Without even deciding to, I yank my hands out of his, and bolt out the front door into the torrential rain, not even bothering with my coat or boots. All that mattered was escaping this stranger who insisted my mother, my undeserving, caring mother, was dead.

I have no idea how long I run for; all I know is that the farther I run, the more distance I'll put between myself and this terrible truth. Yet somehow I know I can never escape it.

_ Duncan, your mother is dead.  _

No. She isn't. She can't be!

She wasn't supposed to die in poverty, as she had lived the last thirteen years of her life. She was supposed to live a long, long time … or at least long enough for me to grow up, get a proper job, and take care of her. She wasn't supposed to leave me with Uncle Jacob, slip out of our lives, and die. She was supposed to come visit us and discover she wanted to live as we did—not luxuriously, to be honest, but comfortably.

How could she leave me like this? Especially after my father left her? Us _?  _ Didn't she understand how bad it hurt for someone you love to just  _ leave  _ you?

"DUNCAN!" Uncle Jacob's panicked voice cries from twenty feet or so behind me, cracked and rougher than usual.

He's still crying. I run even faster.

"DUNCAN, GET BACK HERE!" No more tears in his voice, but a lot more anger. I turn around to meet his eyes, but my legs don't let me go back to him. I reach the end of the block, and without even deciding to, make a break for the other side of the street.

"DUNCAN PHILIP  _ KING!  _ WATCH WHERE—"

The car comes to a screeching halt just inches from me, the woman inside shouting so loud I can hear from outside the car, her mouth forming an  _ O.  _ I try to cross the street, but am suddenly yanked back to the curb. Overwhelmed with exhaustion, I collapse to the ground, and a pair of arms enfolds me in an iron clutch.

"Duncan," Uncle Jacob sobs, "don't you  _ ever _ do that again."

"I-I'm sorry, Uncle Jacob," I wheeze, my vision blurrier than ever.

"Excuse me, should I call someone?" A female voice says from above us. I look up to see the driver, her eyes concerned and her car now parked on the curb.

"Are you okay, ma'am?" Uncle Jacob asks.

"I'm fine," the woman replies, "But what about your son? I almost hit him!"

"Nephew," corrects Uncle Jacob, "And he knows better than to run out into the street like that. I apologize."

"Uncle Jacob!" I protest, but he just looks at me and shakes his head as if to say  _ Not now.  _

"Thank goodness he's all right," sighs the woman. "I couldn't live with myself if I had killed him."

I grimace. This woman is so self-centered; she only regrets my potential death because of how guilty it'd make  _ her  _ feel? What about me? What about Uncle Jacob? What about Mom?

But Mom is dead.  _ Mom is dead. _ It finally dawns on me, and I burst into sobs, burying my head in Uncle Jacob's shirt so the woman doesn't see my tears.

"Emily," Uncle Jacob gasps my mom's name before dissolving once again into tears. They drip down my neck and onto my shirt, so once I've regained a modicum of control, I wriggle out of his grasp and look up at the woman—whom I hated just a moment ago—with what I'm sure are deer-in-the-headlights eyes, and her brow furrows. After a moment, she asks haltingly, "Is something wrong?"

"Yes," I answer. 'My—my—" I don't know if it's because I don't actually trust her, or because I refuse to believe it myself, for some reason the words  _ my mom died  _ just won't come out.

"Your what?" the woman asks in that patronizing tone I hate.

Anger bubbles within me. How dare she treat me like I'm stupid, like I'm innocent and I'm naive and I know nothing? I know more than she could ever understand about the world. About its pain and its grief and its heartache. I'm no longer a  _ child. _ It takes all my willpower for me to not stamp my foot. How dare she treat me like this, especially when my pain (and Uncle Jacob's) is so obvious and real? But I swallow my rage. Now is not the time for a tantrum. Mom wouldn't have approved. At the thought, I feel more tears welling up in the corners of my eyes, but I resolutely blink them away. I won't allow this woman the satisfaction of seeing me blubber and break down ever again.

"My sister." Uncle Jacob finally gets to his feet and, as he does so, he places a steadying hand on my shoulder. "Sh-she died. She was Duncan's mother. When I told him, he ran off."

At this the woman gasps, clapping a hand to her mouth. "Oh my God, I am so sorry!" she exclaims.

I can't tell if she means it. When people make such a big show of saying "sorry", they almost never really do mean it.

"Anyway," says Uncle Jacob, "Duncan and I should get back home. Glad you're okay," he says to the woman, "and I'm sorry for all the trouble we caused you."

"Please, if there's anything I can do …" she trails off, and I can tell she regrets saying what she did. Had we known her any better, I bet she wouldn't even have said it, because we might have taken her up on her offer. Growing up in poverty, I've learned it's rare for strangers to just offer help and then follow through with it; most were just trying to make themselves feel like good people.

"No, thank you," Uncle Jacob replies before turning around and pulling me in the other direction. "Have a nice day."

"I'm sorry for your loss!" the woman calls after us.

_ Yeah, whatever.  _ I roll my eyes as I hurry after Uncle Jacob. However, he stops and nods only once to the woman, acknowledging her pity and goodwill, then places his hand on my shoulder again and guides me back towards the house.

"Duncan?" Uncle Jacob knocks on my door some hours later, after I've cried and cried until no tears remained to be shed and I feel empty and hollow inside, as if after such a violent outpouring of grief there's nothing left within me. "Duncan, are you in there?"

However, I don't respond or move to open the door; I just sit on my bed, staring morosely out my window and towards the forest. While there was torrential rain this afternoon, as if the sky itself were mourning my mother, it's early evening now and the rain is long gone. The clouds remain, though, perfectly reflecting my mood, and the breaks between them are saturated with orange light, those burnished gold sunbeams striking the Earth. And the sun, that brilliant yellow disc, lingers just above the forest, casting its fiery glow over the trees.

Normally, there's nothing I enjoy more than a good sunset, but today it just seems …  _ wrong  _ to have any type of enjoyment. Stupid, but I'm almost  _ angry  _ at the sunset. How can it even think about forcing me to enjoy anything on a day like this? It may as well be one of the five distant relatives that called this afternoon and asked to speak to me, only to tell me they know it's hard, but to keep my chin up and keep smiling and I'll get through anything. I almost slammed down the phone after the third time, but Uncle Jacob must have sensed my anger and took the phone away before hanging up with Great-Aunt Rachel and forcing me to sit through two more conversations with two more relatives I hadn't even known existed. Where were they when Mom and I needed help? If they'd stepped in, maybe she wouldn't have had to live with that cigarette smoker, and then maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have gotten emphysema and  _ died _ .

Two knocks at the door jerk me from my thoughts. "Come in," I say. Uncle Jacob swings open the door and enters my room, even more disheveled than normal. His thin salt-and-pepper hair is all matted and his face all blotchy, and I know he's been crying. It's strange seeing this red-faced Uncle Jacob who's been crying. Uncle Jacob does not cry. This version of him scares me. Even so, I don't flinch when he sits on the edge of my bed and asks, "How are you feeling now, Duncan?"

How am I  _ feeling?  _ How can I even begin to describe it? I feel like… like my heart's been ripped from my chest and bludgeoned by a thousand daggers, like the world is coming to an end and there's nothing I can do except sit around and watch. I feel broken, battered,  _ helpless.  _ But I can't tell Uncle Jacob or he'll worry. And he has enough to worry about already. We have to be in Sydney for Mom's funeral in three days, and have yet to find a reasonably priced motel.

I do notice a small difference from this afternoon, though: After all that crying, my chest feels lighter. Of course, I know that this is only temporary, that the awful heavy feeling will return tomorrow and probably every day after for the rest of my life, but at least I can honestly say to Uncle Jacob that I do, in some way, feel better. I hate having to resort to telling people what they want to hear, but sometimes you just have to do it. It's for Uncle Jacob's own good. He can't be worrying about me right now. So I force a weary smile onto my face and say, "I'm better, Uncle Jacob. Crying helps."

Uncle Jacob gives me a sad smile in return, his swollen, red eyes crinkling as he does so. "Yes," he agrees with a nod and a sniffle. "Yes, it does."

For a minute we sit in silence, and then Uncle Jacob says, "Good news, kid. I found us a motel. Reasonably cheap, and barely five minutes from the funeral home."

"Oh. That's good," I reply, breathing a small sigh of relief. "When do we need to leave?"

"I was thinking we go tomorrow, get Mom's things out of her apartment, and maybe have a talk with her neighbor. I want to find out a little more about her last days. I hear her neighbor is a very heavy smoker, and I'm worried that may have accelerated her lung problems."

Ugh. That smoker. I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of him. What a selfish man he must be to keep up with such a dirty habit, to smoke Mom right into her grave, all while digging his own. If you're going to go down the wrong path like that, at least don't drag others with you. Go be miserable by yourself.

"I bet it did," I say indignantly, unable to keep all the anger out of my voice.

"Well now," Uncle Jacob begins, "let's try to be understanding. Smoking is a very hard habit to break. When I was in France fifteen years ago,  _ everyone  _ smoked. My god, kid, it was terrible. I hate to put stereotypes on people like that—of course, not  _ all  _ French people smoke—but a lot of them sure do. I completely understand why we so often apply that stereotype to the French. Kid, there were times I could hardly  _ breathe  _ while walking the streets of Paris."

I grimace. "That sounds disgusting."

"It is," Uncle Jacob agrees. "It sure is. But it's not just the French. People from everywhere smoke. Nicotine is a very addictive drug. Anyone from anywhere can fall prey to addiction. It's very important not to let anything consume you."

I nod. "I know, Uncle Jacob."

He chuckles once. "Just doin' my job, kid. Lookin' out for ya. I didn't always have that when I was growin' up." He looks down at his lap and mumbles to himself, "Nope, definitely not." Then he turns back to me and says, "Anyway, I made you a sandwich if you're hungry." He gestures to the plate I didn't even notice was sitting on my nightstand, next to my lamp. He must have put it there when he came in.

"Oh. Thanks." Now that he mentioned it, I am  _ really _ hungry. It seems so mundane to be hungry on a day like this, but my basic needs haven't gone anywhere. I grab the plate off my nightstand and dig in. Uncle Jacob made me turkey and cheddar, my favorite. Just the way I like it. Almost as good as when Mom used to make it for me, when we could afford it. At that thought I draw in a sharp breath, then quickly take another bite to keep from crying again and forget about losing Mom for just a second.

Even that one little breath doesn't go unnoticed by Uncle Jacob. He looks at me with concerned eyes and asks, "What's wrong, Duncan?"

He is annoyingly perceptive sometimes. I tell you, he reads people to the point of analyzing them. Especially their body language and what they do. Like this one time we were in the store, and he confided to me that he worried he may have offended this woman by holding a door open for her because she gave him this weird look when he did so. When I asked him why that would offend her, he just said she "looked foreign" and that "different cultures have different ideas of what's acceptable and what's not". I don't know. I personally didn't pick up on any reaction from that woman at all. And I don't really understand Uncle Jacob's fixation with people's body language and foreign cultures. But he's my uncle, and I love him, perceptiveness and all.

"Nothing's wrong," I say quickly, my mind racing as I try to think of how to change the subject. "Um, tell me about … tell me a story! Please?" I give him my best pleading expression.

Uncle Jacob chuckles. "Kid, you haven't asked for a bedtime story time in nearly two years. You said all those books were dumb, remember?"

"They are," I reply. "I meant tell me about your experiences in other countries." I've never really had an interest in traveling, but I figured I'd take this opportunity to better understand Uncle Jacob. Especially since at a time like this we're so much closer than we normally are.

Uncle Jacob looks surprised, but pleased. "Well, okay. Where should we start? Hmm, I know, how about the time I was in Morocco, and had no idea which dialect of Arabic to speak? Oooooh, boy, that was a rough one. I was getting words mixed up left and right! Or maybe the first time I got a whiff of durian in Indonesia … oh my. I can see why they ban those things in public places! Kid, you wouldn't  _ believe  _ the smell. Oh, or maybe I'll tell you about the first time I went to Spain, when I was just your age. I was on a trip with my theater group, but became much more interested in learning as much Spanish as possible when I saw how happy our hosts were to have us there. What do you say, kid? Which would you like to hear?"

I smile my first real smile since hearing Mom died. "Tell me all of them," I say.

Uncle Jacob pretends to think about it for a moment. "Well, it's past your bedtime," he says, glancing at the clock, which says twenty-three thirty, "but okay." He grins at me. "So," he begins. "Morocco."

As I finish my sandwich and listen to Uncle Jacob go on about the look on the salesman's face when he spoke the wrong dialect of Arabic in Morocco, how he nearly passed out the first time he smelled durian in Jakarta, and how he'd first become interested in foreign languages after going to a workshop and a show in Spain with his theater club, I think of how many people there are in the world, and how I'm even smaller and more insignificant than I thought. Out of all the people in the world, I wonder how many are truly good. Surely there aren't many. But there must be some out there, people like Uncle Jacob who take their distant nephew in from practically off the street; people like Mom who give up their own son so he can have a better life; people like the man who mailed Uncle Jacob his lost wallet (and everything in it) all the way from Germany. Among all the narcissists, phonies, and just plain bad people, there  _ have  _ to be a few good ones. Hopefully I'll be able to recognize them if I ever meet them. A boy's gotta have something to hope for in this world.

Sydney hasn't gotten any less ugly with time. I swear, there are even more buildings than before, and any space not occupied by a building is all clogged up by unsightly traffic. Honking car horns pierce the smoggy, putrid air about every five seconds, and it has to be at least a hundred degrees. Fanning myself, I roll up the passenger's seat window. This air is disgusting. I press my nose against the window and sigh. Sydney is even more of a desolate hellhole now that Mom isn't here.

_ Mom isn't here.  _ Mom isn't  _ anywhere.  _ Mom is dead. Gone.

The thought makes a lump rise in my throat. Part of me still doesn't want to believe it. But the other part of me knows it's true. I want to cry, but I can't. I can't because part of me secretly hopes that when I arrive at that old, dilapidated joke of a house, Mom will come running out the door to meet me, and reveal that this whole thing about her dying was just a ruse, that she had found a job and wanted me back but knew Uncle Jacob loved me far too much to give me up and so she had to devise some sort of plan to get him to bring me back…

"God DAMN it!" Uncle Jacob explodes, making me jump in my seat. He's gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles are turning white. "Get off my tail, mate!"

He breathes a heavy sigh, then as we approach the "80 km/h" speed limit sign, regains his composure and taps his foot ever so slightly on the brakes. But the car behind us doesn't slow down, and damn near crashes into us. The driver, I guess, finally comes to his senses and passes us, but not without shooting us an ice-cold glare that sends a shiver up my spine.

"Idiot," spits Uncle Jacob.

Another reason I don't like cars: People use them to hide who they really are. They don't care that they could get people killed with their reckless driving and they just do whatever on the road because you can't see their faces so you'll never know who almost robbed you of your life for no good reason.

But I do know who robbed Mom of her life for no good reason: that smoker. Why, oh why, did he have to move in with Mom? Why, oh why, did he have to smoke?

Uncle Jacob checks his GPS one last time, then says, "I think this is it, kid." He finally parks the car on the curb, next to a series of tiny, cramped apartments.

"Yes," I reply, staring at the faded blue strip of a building in front of me. "Yes, that one's it."

"Wow," Uncle Jacob breathes. "This was Emily's home?"

"Yeah," I sigh. "Mine, too."

"Wow," Uncle Jacob breathes again, looking at me sadly. "Well, let's go in."

We make our way up the short driveway and to the door. Uncle Jacob tries the doorbell once, twice. No sound.

"I got it," I say, digging my thumbnail into the top part of the doorbell, which yields a sharp ringing sound. I turn back to Uncle Jacob and explain, "Sometimes this thing gets stuck."

I hear shuffling from inside the house, followed by a rattly hacking sound. And then the door creaks open.

Standing before me is a white-haired man of sixty-something years, dressed in a tattered, dirty t-shirt and much-too-tight jeans. His eyes look saggy, tired. His long beard is unkempt and his hair uncombed. But all of that put together can't even come close to equaling the stench. The smell of nicotine—something like a mixture of garbage and drugs and sickness and poison— overwhelms me, and I feel my legs go unsteady as I stand in the doorway.

"Hello," the man coughs out, breathing nicotine right into my face. "Jacob King?"

"Yes," Uncle Jacob answers. "And this is my nephew, Duncan."

The neighbor nods. "Charles," he says, and steps aside to let us in. I'm glad he doesn't bother talking to me. I don't think I could exchange pleasantries with this sick man who killed my mother without throwing up myself. As it is, my stomach heaves as I step inside and the smell of nicotine hits me even stronger than before.

The house—if you can really call it that—hasn't changed much since I left. The tiny kitchen is still piled high with empty jugs of milk and empty boxes of cheap cereal, the old scrap of a table is still in the center of the kitchen, and the ceiling is still falling apart, albeit in more places than before. The man—Charles—leads me and Uncle Jacob through the kitchen into the cramped living room and we all sit on the rock-hard, dusty couch.

"So," begins Uncle Jacob awkwardly, "How exactly did Emily die?"

"Emphy—" begins Charles, but stops as he is wracked by a coughing fit. "Pardon me," he says. "Emphysema."

I bite my tongue. He can't even get through one word—a disease I bet he himself has—without coughing.

Uncle Jacob's face falls. "Did the autopsy confirm this?"

Charles nods.

"And did she smoke?"

"Um, no." Charles looks uncomfortable.

"I see," replies Uncle Jacob. "So it was secondhand smoke that caused her death."

I glare at Charles, hoping he notices. He already killed Mom. He should at least have the decency to admit it when confronted with the truth.

Charles coughs. "Yes."

Uncle Jacob stares at the ground for a moment, then looks back at Charles. "I see."

I stare at the ground too, wondering if it looks as blurry to Uncle Jacob as it does to me.

Uncle Jacob asks Charles several more questions about Mom's last years, like when her symptoms started and whether she knew she was sick and whether she pursued any treatment. Charles tells him that Mom's symptoms had likely started long ago, before I even left, but that she had passed it off as a side effect of malnourishment or the dirtiness of the streets; that she never knew she had emphysema and thus never pursued any treatment.

"If you ask me," says Charles, "I think she just gave up. I would have told her not to, but...but...it's hard to encourage someone not to give up when you feel like giving up yourself."

_ Whoa.  _ Where was  _ this  _ coming from?!

"You feel like giving up?" I blurt, then immediately wish I hadn't. I glance at Uncle Jacob, expecting to see disapproval on his face, but instead seeing only sadness.

Charles's beady, tired eyes bore into mine as he says, "I've been through a lot in life, kid. Let's just say I've met a lot of really bad people, and now I've got nothing left to live for, really. Plus I'm old. So it's too late to just start over."

"So that's why you smoke?" I ask.

"Duncan," Uncle Jacob warns.

Charles sighs. "It's okay. And yes, Duncan, I suppose that is why I smoke. It makes me forget about my problems, makes me feel like I have something to live for for a while. But don't ever start smoking, Duncan. You hear me? You can do better in life than that."

"I need to use the bathroom," I say, quickly getting up and sprinting out of the family room and down the hallway. I still remember where it is; I don't need Charles to show me the way.

Once I reach the bathroom, I slam the door shut behind me and sit on the floor and start bawling my eyes out. I feel so confused—I'm so angry at Charles for killing my mom and not even wanting to admit to it, and even angrier at him for not telling her not to give up for not trying to help her. Maybe he has nothing to live for, but she did! She was my mom! But on the other hand, how could he possibly have told her that giving up was no good when it would be a lie in his eyes? And what could he have possibly gone through in life that he would become completely dependent on this poisonous drug, watch it kill my mom, and yet still sap his meager savings on a pack a day?

I'm not sure I ever want to know the answer. I just know I feel bad for him.

Once they've lowered Mom into the ground and I've managed to avoid all the guests, I finally take some flowers to her grave. White roses—Mom's favorite. I think she liked them best because my dad, she told me, had started graying early, so they reminded her of his hair.

I place the roses on her grave and whisper, "Goodbye, Mom. I love you." I want to cry, but after crying out of pity for Charles at the house and then crying even more out of anger at the minister for talking like he knew Mom and out of anger at the guests for being there and out of pure, unadulterated, crushing grief for Mom at the funeral, I have no more tears to shed. So now I just feel empty.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I say. "I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry we won't get to live together again once I grow up and get a proper job. I'm sorry Dad left you. I'm sorry Charles's smoking killed you. I'm sorry you gave up in life. I wish you hadn't. I love you, Mom. I'm sorry."

"Duncan?" I hear Uncle Jacob's voice behind me, and then he is crouched next to me, a hand on my shoulder as he places a single white rose on Mom's grave.

"Hi, Uncle Jacob," I say.

"Well, kid, I guess this is it," he sighs, and it takes me a second to realize he is speaking to Mom, not me. Did he call Mom  _ kid  _ as well? I guess he must've. She was younger than him, after all. I wonder if calling me  _ kid  _ reminds him of her, and if that's why he does it.

"...I just wish I could turn back time, Emily," Uncle Jacob whispers, a single tear running down his cheek. Part of me screams to look away immediately, but I'm too curious to hear what Uncle Jacob says to Mom. "Had I known you would have descended into this downward spiral, I would never have let you go off and live by yourself in that hole in the ground. I'd have talked to you long and hard and good until I'd knocked some sense into you and convinced you to take care of yourself and come live with me because it's what would've been best for you. You know, I'd always thought you really let yourself go off the deep end. I know money's always been scarce, but we could have made things better for you. But...I don't know, I didn't want to say anything. After all, you were an adult, and I couldn't tell you what to do. I didn't want to make you mad at me after just being abandoned by Chris. You didn't need any more bad feelings, and—oh, who am I kidding, I just didn't want to lose you. I've traveled all over the world for  _ years _ , but I've never met anyone who understood me as well as you, my own sister, did. I suppose I've never met the kind of people I'd hoped to meet, never built the kind of relationships I'd hoped to have. I didn't want to lose the one person who understood me so completely. I didn't want you to be mad at me for calling you out on on your poor living situation. But I should have. I should have had that difficult conversation with you. I should have been more direct about the problem I so clearly saw was there. I should have confronted you. But I didn't. I left you alone for my own selfish reasons, and look how that ended. I'm so sorry, Emily. I wasn't direct enough with you. I really, really screwed up."

I stare at Uncle Jacob, unable to believe what I just heard. Unable to comprehend. Was he blaming himself for Mom's death?  _ Why?  _ It wasn't his fault. Charles's smoking killed her. Uncle Jacob didn't.

"Come on, Duncan, let's go," Uncle Jacob turns around and tugs on my sleeve, pulling me away from the grave. Away from Mom. I resist for a moment, but then hasten to keep up with Uncle Jacob.

"Uncle Jacob," I say as we make our way through the graveyard, "Do you think Mom's death was your fault?"

He doesn't answer for a long moment. I look up at him, expectant, and am taken aback by his eyes. They are wide, distressed. Like he's just made a disturbing realization. He  _ is  _ blaming himself for Mom's death. But  _ why? _

Finally he answers, dazed, "It's hard to say, Duncan. But for now let's just say that in life, you are going to meet a lot of people. And you need to make sure you have clear communication with them. If you don't, you'll end up with a lot of regrets."

I stare back at him and frown, still not understanding. What if I don't  _ want  _ to meet a lot of people? What if I don't want to meet anyone new ever again? This shouldn't apply to me. Uncle Jacob isn't making sense. Surely his mind is messed up from his grief. Or maybe the nicotine from Charles's smoking is affecting his head, too. Whatever it is, I don't understand. But I nod, pretending I do, and say, "Yes, Uncle Jacob."

He ruffles my hair. "I know I don't say this enough, but I love ya, Duncan. Just want ya to know that."

"I love you, too, Uncle Jacob," I reply automatically, but I'm not really listening. All I can do is look back at Mom's grave, which gets smaller and smaller until it's reduced to a tiny gray dot in the distance. I think to myself that this is the last time I'll ever see her. Because I am never, ever coming back to Sydney.


	4. Growing Up Quickly

Seven Years Later

I'm barely twenty, I'm alone, and I've ended up in Borneo on a whim.

Uncle Jacob died seven months ago. He had a heart attack in his sleep. He wasn't old, only fifty-six. I never saw it coming. That night he was fine, and then the next morning he was just...gone. It scared me really bad. I couldn't cry, couldn't even move at first. I just called my neighbor Anne, and she helped me make arrangements.

I went to his funeral, which society took over as soon as word had spread that my uncle had passed. Ceremony, venue, everything; they just took it over. Decided everything without even consulting me, the nephew of the deceased. In a way, this was a good thing, because I had no idea what kind of funeral Uncle Jacob would have wanted; yet it was also a bad thing, for he was my uncle, not a freak show. It seemed half the people who showed up didn't even know him, and I'm certain none of the kids tearing around by the casket knew him. I'll never forgive that one grubby toddler who had tried to climb into the casket and would have succeeded had this short blond guy and I not caught him.

"Cole, get out of there!" the guy had cried, pulling the kid off of the casket. Then, after handing the rambunctious toddler off to his mother, the guy had turned to me and said, "I'm Liam. I'm sorry about my son. And I'm sorry for your loss. I'll miss my godfather very much."

Godfather?!

At first I didn't know what Liam was talking about. But then I remembered that Uncle Jacob had mentioned having a godson, the son of an old colleague in New Zealand. Uncle Jacob and this friend had not spoken for several years, but apparently when Liam was born, Uncle Jacob had left everything to him. And then I remembered that, in the years before his sudden death, Uncle Jacob had been under a lot of legal stress. He had been trying to change his will to include me in it (not that he'd known how soon this would become necessary), but his lawyer had often been sick and on leave of absence. So his will never got changed, and Liam inherited the house and all the money. So after Uncle Jacob died I had little money—only what Mom had left to me when she died—and no house. Liam had moved into Uncle Jacob's house with his wife and son because he wanted to be closer to his job. He offered to let me stay with him, and I did because I saw no better option. I didn't exactly hate Liam. Actually, I didn't at all. He just wasn't Uncle Jacob. Sharing a house with your uncle at your mom's bequest was totally different from sharing that same house with your uncle's godson, who had never agreed to helping a kid off the streets. I worried he secretly resented me. But Liam seemed generous and happy to help me support myself, and I didn't feel like he simply pitied me, either, which was good.

Seven months passed, and one day Uncle Jacob's employer in Borneo sent a letter offering him work there. There was a program called Orangutan Rescue Project, and many of the conservationists, who were natives of Indonesia, had trouble communicating with the staff members who were not. Apparently Uncle Jacob's lawyer had not been the only incompetent person in his life, for I was surprised that, after seven months, he hadn't known he'd died. I could have just called, or sent a letter back, but instead I decided to leave Australia. I had seen a poster on a telephone pole advertising internships at Orangutan Rescue Project. Thanks to bird-watching with Uncle Jacob, I've always loved saving animals from human destruction, so I found this opportunity appealing. I figured that while I was there, I could pay a visit to Uncle Jacob's employer, and let him know he'd died. So I told Liam I'd be packing up. At first he was real concerned.

"No way," he said. "With the money you have? At least let me give you some more."

But I refused. This wasn't something anyone could help me with. This was me going out on my own to try my hand at life. And to give orangutans a second chance at theirs.

So here I am now, standing in the office of the woman who founded Orangutan Rescue Project. Amy takes in my backpack, my disheveled hair, and my clothes that I haven't changed in three days, and she laughs.

"You?" she says, faint contempt in her voice. But I don't bristle. "What experience do you have working with orangutans?"

Shit. Should I lie? I really need a job, and this one is tempting, even though I have no experience with orangutans whatsoever. Oh, wait, I just handed Amy my application. Lying is probably not the best choice.

"Well," I begin, "I don't actually have any experience, but I can say for myself that I've always cared about saving animals. You know, feed the baby bird that fell out of the nest, that sort of thing. My uncle taught me. It's thanks to him I love the outdoors."

"That's cute," says Amy, though her lips are pursed as she regards me. "But orangutans are dangerous animals. Accidents can happen. You have to know what you're doing. And someone who's only handled birds in his life probably doesn't."

Damn. This is going downhill fast. My palms are moist as I stand in front of Amy, my mind racing, searching for a way to save myself.

"Wait, I can help him," interjects a tiny young woman, jogging over to Amy's desk. Her Indonesian accent is pronounced, but I'm still able to understand her. "We have less staff since we lost Michael and Katie. This young man will be perfect for the job. After all, the best employees are the ones who truly care about the animals."

Amy looks from the girl to me several times, and finally says to me, "Fine. We'll give you a tour of the place, then a job interview. Welcome to Orangutan Rescue Project. But I'll tell you, you're darn lucky Mikha was here."

"Thank you." I don't know what else to say. "Shall we go?"

Amy rolls her eyes. "No, Mikha will lead the tour. Now if you'll excuse me, I must be going on lunch break. He's all yours, Mikh." Amy nods at the tiny girl, who is pulling her straight black hair into a ponytail.

"Welcome!" Mikha says. "I am Mikha, as you maybe already know. What is your name?"

"Duncan King," I say. "How long have you been working with orangutans?"

"Oh, I around them all my life. My dad was ever orangutan conservationist but now retire; he traveled the world rescuing them from zoo. But I have only worked here for a year. I was ever in the same position as you're. Don't worry though." At this point she begins bouncing and dragging me out of the building. "Amy's tough," she confides, her dark eyes sparkling, "but she learn for to like you. I think the others too."

I nod and follow her outside. She shuts the door and asks, "So, Duncan, where are you from?"

"Canberra, Australia," I reply.

"Really? You don't talk like them. I have guessed somewhere in America."

I laugh. "Oh. Well, I avoid speaking like an Australian at all cost. I've always hated the accent. Ever since I heard an American accent in a pet store, I've taught myself to talk the same way."

Mikha asks, "So, how did you learn to talk like an American? Do you have a teacher?"

"Nope," I say. "Just picked it up from tourists on the street."

"Wow, impressive. I can't even do bird calls." She grins at me, and makes a sound like the cry of a dying cat. I laugh.

"Bird calls? Don't get me started," says a new female voice from behind. I turn around to see another young woman wearing the same dark green uniform as Mikha and Amy. Like Mikha, she is small and golden-skinned, but her accent isn't nearly as strong, and she's wearing a long, navy blue cloth over her head.

"Mikha," says the woman. "Who's this?"

"This is my friend Duncan. He maybe work here. I give him tour of the place."

I can't remember the last time someone claimed me as their friend. Maybe there isn't a last time. I'm beginning to really like Mikha.

"Welcome, Duncan," says the other girl. "I'm Nadya."

"Nice to meet you," I say, hoping my face doesn't look as red as it feels hot.

"You, too," she replies with a little smile. "You going to work here? You have much experience with orangutans?"

"None at all," I say.

"Wow, you're brave." Nadya bats her long black eyelashes. Whoa. "But be careful. Orangutans can be dangerous."

"Yeah, I know. Amy told me."

"No, I'm serious. My mother died trying to rescue an orangutan trapped under an old cart. He didn't understand she was trying to help him and he attacked her. I was thirteen years old, just when I needed her most."

"My mom died when I was thirteen, too. Lung problems."

Nadya puts a hand on my arm. "I'm sorry your mother died," she says. She sounds ... sincere. Wow.

I give her a sad smile. "I'm sorry your mother died, too."

We stand like this for a moment. Normally I hate when people offer me their condolences, but for some reason Nadya is different, probably because she, too, lost her mother. She understands. This is the most I've connected to anyone in years; I don't want her to take her hand away. And she doesn't, until Mikha interrupts us.

"Should we continue the tour?" I almost forgot about Mikha. I would have been angry at her for ruining the moment, except she saved me from Amy earlier.

I nod. "Um, sure."

As we walk, I learn that Nadya's twenty—just like me!—and that she's lived with her firefighter dad ever since her mom died. I learn that she gave up studying literature to be an orangutan conservationist in her mom's memory. Mikha says she's taken after her adventurous dad from birth and would cry every morning when he left for work until, one day when she was six years old, he decided she was old enough to be around orangutans and let her come along. And when I'm not answering Mikha and Nadya's questions about my life or asking them questions about theirs, I marvel at the lush green rainforest surrounding me. I could get used to this, actually. Helping orangutans, friendly girls, a beautiful woods—yep, I could definitely get used to this. All that's left to do now is get the job.


	5. Are You a Human?

"I hope you enjoyed your stay in our motel. Come back soon," the host says in a thick Indonesian accent, smiling from ear to ear.

"Thank you," I reply, then sling my backpack over my shoulder and jog out into the street, seconds later regretting doing so. He probably thinks I'm rude now. I'm sure I don't care, but if I'm going to keep this job, I need to learn how to interact with the general public. And when you grow up in isolation harboring a deep hatred for people, you usually don't know how to do that.

Today's my first day. I'm nervous. After I left the ORP tour, I scribbled Mikha, Nadya, and Amy's phone numbers on a sheet of paper and used most of what little money I had to buy a weird device called an iPhone. Apparently it's like a cell phone, but it can do other things too. Like a computer. At least now I know I don't need one of those, too. Uncle Jacob had a cell phone, but he didn't use it unless he was going away. Most of the time he just took calls at his desk. Anyway, I called Amy from my iPhone that same day. No response. The next day, I called her again. No response. In a panic, I badgered Mikha with text messages (not wanting to bother Nadya). She said Amy was just "like that" and would probably call soon. And yesterday, just like that, Amy called, telling me I got the job and to come in today. So now here I am, dressed in ORP's green-on-top, white-on-bottom garb, waiting for Mikha to show me how to work with orangutans.

Smack in the middle of the forest is a large wooden platform, where orangutans sit. They fight each other for space until a staff member comes by and dumps a sack of fruits and vegetables in front of them; then they go wild, fighting each other for food instead. Around the platform, more staff members—some clearly Indonesian, some not—are nursing baby orangutans. I have to admit, the babies are pretty damn cute.

"Are they orphans?" I ask, turning to Nadya.

Nadya nods. "Many of them were once kept illegally as pets. Orangutans are an endangered species, so we nurse them here to keep them from going extinct."

"Yes, our job is the best!" Mikha grins, throwing her arms up in the air.

One of the guys bottle-feeding a baby orangutan stares at me. His gaze is disapproving. "Mikha," he says after a moment, " _ siapa itu?"  _

"That's Duncan, and he appreciate if you speak English," Mikha scowls; it's clear these two can barely stand each other. "Duncan, this is Iwan. He's in charge of the babies."

"Hi," I say. I won't be pushed around; I try to act confident, holding my head high and locking eyes with Iwan.

But Iwan just glares at me. "Who allow you enter here?" he demands. Clearly, he's never bothered to learn to speak proper English; his enunciation isn't very good, and his words are so garbled I can hardly understand them.

"I applied to work here, and Mikha and Nadya were nice enough to show me around." The truth is the best answer.

"Yeah?" He crosses his huge arms over his chest, and I note with detachment that he could pound me to pulp without even trying. "You have what experience with orangutan?"

Shit. "None. This would be my first time working with them. If I can help them in any way, I'll be happy."

"Great," Iwan groans. "Just what we need. An animal lover that have no experience. Before the day's end we're have to pull his body from under Putra's ass."

"Oh, stop it, Iwan," says Mikha. "Don't be so mean." She marches up to him, getting in his face, if that's even possible for such a short Indonesian woman to do.

"Who's Putra?" I whisper to Nadya, hoping Iwan doesn't notice. I can't keep looking like an idiot.

"The head orangutan. They've got a hierarchy of their own," she replies.

But Iwan does notice. He pushes Mikha aside, shoves his way between me and Nadya, turns to me, and drawls, "If you be work here, you must learn names orangutan yourself. You cannot go run to one of your girlfriend if you forget."

Mikha glares at him. "Enough." She grabs my arm and pulls me toward a group of young men and young women. I follow gratefully; Iwan is a jerk. "Let's meet some more of my friends." She waves at them, and most wave back. "Everybody," she says, pulling me to the center of the circle, "this is Duncan. Duncan, this is everybody."

I greet the group and tell them a little bit about myself. I'm soon swamped with questions as if I'm the most interesting man in the world. Obviously I'm not; I don't know if I like this. Mikha's friends seem nice enough, but don't they all start off that way? Plus their intent eye contact is making me uncomfortable.

One of Mikha's friends, a bulky, red-haired guy, fixes a piercing gaze on me. "I'm Patrick. Are you working with us now?"

I nod. "I am."

A girl sidles up to me and asks in an Auckland accent, "I take it you've met Iwan then?" She says his name a little too seriously—is she his girlfriend?

"Erm, yes," I reply, uneasy. I don't want to already come off as rude, but I doubt I could be friends with anyone who's dating that jerk.

Some of my inner turmoil must show on my face, because another young guy, this time with clearly Indonesian features—golden complexion, dark hair, dark eyes—grins and pats me on the shoulder. "Don't worry," he says in perfectly clear English. "None of us like Iwan. He thinks just because he's dating Amy that he runs the place."

I smile in return. "Thanks."

"Oh," the guy says, "I almost forgot. Duncan, is it?"

"Yep," I confirm.

He holds out a hand. "Rasi."

"Nice to meet you," I say. I offer him my hand, expecting him to just clasp it without really shaking it. But he surprises me and gives it a strong shake, grinning impishly again. "Is that how Americans shake?" he asks.

His forwardness is making me a little nervous, but at least he seems accepting of me. "Well, I wouldn't know," I say after a moment. "I'm from Australia."

Rasi's eyes widen. "Really? Then why do you talk like an American?"

"I guess I just don't like Australian accents."

"Duncan is great at learning accents," Mikha brags. She smiles and lays a hand on my shoulder. "Didn't have a teacher, but fooled me into thinking he was American." She cocks an ear to the side. "Hey, what's that?"

"Seems like a bird," Nadya replies. She stuck by my side through the entire question-and-answer session with the others, and I really appreciated her silent, reassuring presence.

"I've never heard a call like that," I say. My curiosity piqued, I follow the bird call away, into the forest.

"Where are you going?" Nadya asks, concerned. She's managed to grab my hand, and is holding me back.

"I want to see what kind of bird that is." I pull my hand out of hers, careful not to be too rough, then turn and begin walking away. "I'll be fine."

"Duncan, don't! You'll get lost," Mikha calls.

"Yeah, new guy, come back!" one of her friends shouts.

"Don't worry about me," I reply, not even bothering to turn around. I stay focused on the woods before me. "I'm good at finding my way around."

I race in the direction of the bird call, suddenly afraid one of the conservationists will try to stop me. But there's no sound of footsteps behind me, so they must not be following me. This time when I hear the bird, I imitate him as best I can. For a few minutes, the bird and I continue our conversation. His voice draws me to a tree with a wide stump. When I'm standing there, waiting for the next call, I hear a faint whistling. Then suddenly, my upper arm stings.

"Damn it!" I yell, grabbing my injured arm. My head snaps in the direction of the whistling, but I don't see anything; I just hear heavy feet running away. Great. Iwan must have followed me.

I sprint in the direction of the footsteps, running recklessly through the forest. Within seconds I catch up to my attacker and discover, crouched behind a rock, a man. But it isn't Iwan.

"Who are you?" I approach the man. He's dirty and ragged and looks like he hasn't shaved in months, but I don't care. I've seen worse.

His head snaps up; he fixes an ice-cold gaze on me. "Are you a human?" he spits in a thick, strange accent.

Um... _ what? _

"Yes," I say, sitting down on the rock. "What else would I be?"

"I dunno. Are you a civilized human?"

I shrug. "What's your definition of civilized?"

"Are you rich or poor?"

I shouldn't trust this guy, but I do. "Poor."

"Do you like people?"

"Not generally, but a few are all right."

"You're all right." The guy stands up. "Call me Sukarno. What do I call you?"

"Duncan."

"How'd you find me?" he asks.

"Oh, um, I heard you running away."

"Were you that other bird?"

Are my bird calls that good? "Were  _ you? _ "

Sukarno's dark eyes widen as if he's realizing something. "Did I hit you?" he asks, holding up a slingshot. "I'm sorry. I was just hunting, that's all."

"Hunting?" I say. Then something dawns on me. "Do you, do you  _ live  _ out here?"

"I do. I have all my life. Carrying on my family's ancient Javanese tradition."

"Where is your family?"

"All dead. My parents were—"

"Duncan!" I hear Nadya's voice in the distance, and just like that, Sukarno is gone. I look around, flabbergasted by his sudden disappearance.

Nadya runs up to me, grabbing my hand and squeezing it tight. "Are you okay?" she asks, but I'm too busy staring out into the forest to answer her. "When you didn't come back after several minutes, we began to worry you got lost."

I force myself to stop searching the woods and actually meet her eyes. "I'm fine, Nadya." I smile down at her.

She lets out a gusty sigh. "Thank goodness." Then, still holding my hand, she turns and shouts behind her, "Mikha, I found him!"

"Oh, good!" Mikha rushes up to me and hugs me. Her friends follow, like a herd of elephants stomping through the forest. Mikha's embrace immobilizes me; no one has done this to me since Mom's funeral. I hope Mikha isn't offended that I don't return her hug.

Thankfully, she just seems to be glad I'm okay. "Did you find the bird?" she asks.

"Um, no, I didn't," I say. There was no bird, so it's true, but I have a feeling Sukarno wouldn't be happy if anyone else knew he was here.

"Shall we head back and show Duncan around?" suggests Nadya. She glances around the wood and chews on her lower lip, clearly nervous to be here. We are pretty deep in the forest.

"Yeah, great idea!" Mikha takes my arm again and we start walking back to the office. I memorize the path behind me, taking in every tree and every turn. I want to come back and see Sukarno again.

"Ooh, it's dark," Nadya frets as we make our way through the woods. "I hope we get back soon. It isn't exactly  _ safe _ , walking out in the woods at this hour."

"Nadya's right," says a mousy brunette girl, clutching onto her boyfriend's beefy arm. "We should get back."

"Oh, we're almost there," Mikha reassures them. "Besides, at least we're all together if anything does happen."

"Haven't you ever been out in the forest alone before?" I ask Nadya.

She turns to look at me, her expression uncomfortable. "Yes," she replies, "but never at night. And I've never been this deep in the forest before." She shivers, even though it's not that cold.

On my other side, Rasi leans toward me and whispers into my ear, "Now's your chance to offer her your arm."

"Rasi!" I protest, giving him a death glare. He laughs, but not in a mean way. Still, I feel my face get hot in a strange, unfamiliar way, and I'm very glad Iwan isn't here.

After I've regained my composure, I say to Rasi, "Actually, I think I will, thank you very much." Then I smile at Nadya and offer her my arm. She smiles back, and, surprisingly, takes it.

I mouth a  _ Thanks  _ to Rasi and grin at him. He winks back.

We continue walking through the forest in peaceful silence. The woods are so beautiful after it gets dark: the forest is shrouded in the mysteriousness of opaque night, with only the animals' quiet noises giving any clue to its true self. I gaze around me in wonder, feeling myself relax as I take it all in.

When we finally make it out of the forest, Iwan is waiting for us. "Where you all go?" he snaps.

"Not that it's any of your business," says Rasi, "but we went for a walk in the woods."

Iwan snorts. "There not time for those thing here. This is work, you know."

Mikha narrows her eyes. "Shut up, Iwan."

Iwan glares right back at her. "Is that any way to talk to your boss's fiancé? If you want keep your job, I suggest you treat me with respect."

"Come on, Iwan, can't we go one day without threatening people's jobs?" says Rasi.

"If you don't shut up, Duncan here won't  _ have  _ a job anymore." And with that, Iwan storms off.

"Ugh, I hate him," says Mikha.

"But you got the job!" Nadya smiles at me.

"That's right! Yay, Duncan!" exclaims Rasi. Some people smile. Others are giving me the side-eye.

We all mill about before the office for a few minutes, and just as everyone is getting ready to leave, Mikha says, "Well, productive day, everyone. And Duncan, we're glad to have you here."

"Wait," Nadya says, letting go of my arm and walking over to Mikha. Aw. "We still don't know where he's going to work."

"Oh, we'll figure that out tomorrow. We've got all the time in the world!" Mikha grins and shoves Nadya back over in my direction, making her crash right into me. I catch her, feeling that weird heat in my face again, even stronger than before.

Nadya regains her balance. "Thanks, Duncan," she smiles at me. Even though it's dark, I can see her face is red, too. "I, um, think I need to go now. My dad will wonder where I am."

"Do you have to go?" I blurt, regretting it as soon as I say it.

Nadya blinks. "You'll see me tomorrow," she says a little shyly. Huh. She must be new to this flirting thing, too.

"WHOOOOOOOOOOO!" several conservationists, mostly guys, whoop. Rasi shakes his head at them and gives me shrug and a smile like,  _ What can you do? _

Mikha is so giddy she looks on the verge of squealing, but collects herself and asks me, "Duncan, need a ride home?"

I freeze. Shit. How to explain this...how to—how  _ do  _ I explain this?

" _ Hello _ ," sings Mikha, now right in front of me, waving a hand in my face. Snapping back to attention, I focus my eyes on her. "I said, need a ride home?" she asks again.

Mikha's my friend, but I can't explain my situation. Not now. I mean, the others might overhear. I'm sure I don't care, but I'm also sure word would get back to Amy, and I have a feeling she  _ kind of  _ might regret hiring a homeless weirdo. I guess I'll just have to lie for now.

"I, uh—actually, I'm not going home tonight," I say, hoping I can convince her. "I got into a fight with my parents this morning, and I don't really want to see them right now. So could you drive me to a hotel or something?"

Mikha frowns, worried. I can tell she doesn't buy my story. "I mean, I can," she begins, "but the nearest one's forty-five minutes away. Why don't you..." she trails off, probably wishing she hadn't said anything. Because now she probably thinks she has to offer to let me stay with her or something. And I could see how that could be a questionable decision, what with me being a guy and her being a girl.

"I know," says Rasi, coming up next to me and clapping me on the shoulder. "Duncan can stay with me tonight."

"That works," says Mikha, poorly disguised relief on her face. But I understand; if I were a girl, I'd be reluctant to let a strange guy into my house, too.

I give Rasi a smile. "Oh, thanks so much," I say. "Do you mind?

He smiles back, that impish grin again. "Of course not. Friends stay together through—what's the expression?—thick and thin. Is that right?"

"Yeah," I respond. Wow. I'm still not used to the idea of having  _ friends _ . I've had family, and people I needed to see, like the doctor, but that was about it for my social life up to this point.

"Awesome. You ready to go?" Rasi reaches into his pocket for his keys, a moment later holding them up and jingling them.

"Uh, yeah. Bye, Mikha. And thanks for your help."

"Any time." Mikha lays a hand on my arm and says, a little more quietly, "You know, if you ever need anything, you can just say it."

She must know something is different about me. She must. And she must accept me nonetheless. Can people like this really exist? I'm beginning to think the answer is yes. A select few, anyway.

I give her a small smile. "Thanks."

Mikha goes to check on the orangutans one last time, while Rasi and I head to the parking lot. He drives a big black truck, with splattered dried mud all over the sides. I head Iwan making fun of him earlier for "that piece of junk he drives to work in", but I like Rasi's truck. It reminds me of Mom's truck. And a car as audacious as Iwan's shiny red convertible has no right to exist.

"So," I begin as we hit the road, then trail off as I realize I have no idea what I was going to say. I should try to act "normal", but I don't even know what to talk about. What  _ do _ guys my age talk about, anyway? I squirm in the passenger's seat a little. This is embarrassing. At least it's Rasi and not Nadya I'm making a fool of myself in front of.

Rasi raises an eyebrow, but doesn't take his eyes off the road. "Yeah?"

I decide to just tell him what I was thinking. "I like your truck," I say. "It reminds me of my mom's."

"Thanks. I like it, too." Rasi reaches forward and pats the dashboard. "It's old, but it gets me around, which is all I can really ask for, you know?"

I nod and look out the window. "Yeah. I get that."

Rasi asks, "But didn't you get into a fight with your mom?"

Oops. Once you lie, you have to keep lying. Well, there's only one way through this mess now: say what's true, but say as little as possible. "Well," I begin, "There's actually much more to it than that. I sort of lied before. It's kind of personal, and I didn't want everyone at work hearing."

Rasi looks over at me, his expression concerned. I don't hold it against him, but the amount of times I've seen that expression just today is really starting to grate on my nerves. He says, "If you don't mind my asking, where  _ do  _ you live?"

Knew this was coming. I bite down on my nails, thinking hard. At last I respond, "For now, let's just say I don't really have anywhere to call home."

"I see. Well, you can stay with me as long as you need."

I nod. "Thanks."

"No problem." Rasi turns down a short driveway. The house at the end is small, like Uncle Jacob's was. It doesn't look nearly as cozy, but it does look sturdy. And it's even close to work. I could go back to the forest tonight, and see Sukarno. 'Course, I'd have to find him first.

"We're here," says Rasi cheerfully, parking and climbing out of the truck. I follow suit, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. Rasi holds a hand out and asks, "Can I take that for you?"

I shake my head. "No, thanks," I say. I follow him to the front door, taking note of the overgrown, neglected garden. The lush green of the weeds looks like it could swallow the house up at any moment. Beautiful.

Rasi unlocks the door, opens it, and grins. "Come on in," he urges, and I follow him inside. "I know it's nothing grand," he continues, "but at least we have a roof over our heads."

As Rasi chatters on, showing me around his little house, I think of Sukarno, out in the forest all alone.  _ He  _ doesn't have a roof over  _ his _ head. Has he ever? How does he survive out there?  _ Can  _ anyone live like that? If so, I want to know how.

"Anyway," says Rasi, "do you need anything right now? Food? Drink? Shower?"

I feel my stomach rumble, but I ignore it. Somehow I feel weird about asking him for food. I mean, he's already let me stay with him despite my obvious weirdness; he shouldn't have to share anything else with me. But I really should shower. I've never seen the need, but I'm pretty sure Amy wouldn't be too happy if I came into work tomorrow looking even more disheveled than I did today.

"Well, I really do need a shower," I say. "Gotta be presentable for work, you know."

Rasi laughs. "Right. Follow me this way."


	6. Evil

At three in the morning I sneak out to see Sukarno. Rasi has only one bedroom, which we had to share, and I was worried I might wake him up when I left. Thankfully, he turned out to be a heavy sleeper, not even stirring when I accidentally kicked a chair down onto the wooden floor. If I'd so much as tiptoed on the floor in the middle of the night when I was living with Mom, she'd've woken up immediately. She often woke up in the middle of the night, even at the slightest noises. I think each time she was hoping the noise was my father coming back.

I tiptoe out of the house and into the darkness of the early morning, where I'm met with the sound of birds singing to each other up in the trees. Some calls I recognize, and some I don't. I continue through the overgrown yard, down the driveway, and onto the empty street. I have no problem finding my way to ORP, which is only about a twenty minute walk from Rasi's house. It's when I get to ORP that my plan hits a snag: of course, the gate is locked.

"Damn it," I mutter to myself. I have no idea why this is so important to me, but I  _ have  _ to see Sukarno  _ now _ . There's no way I'd be able to sneak off into the woods while on the clock. At least not while I still need supervision. And I have no experience whatsoever with orangutans, so...yeah. Mikha tried to teach me how to train orangutans to flee when they saw a snake. She approached Bali, a shy female orangutan, with a toy snake, and Bali made kind of a hissing sound like a cat and fled. Mikha nodded approvingly and explained to me that this was an appropriate reaction; some snakes were poisonous, and an orangutan had actually died last year after being bitten by a pit viper. Then Mikha handed me the snake and told me to try. So I approached Jacques, a gangly male orangutan, with the snake, but he just stood there and gave me a look like  _ Who do you think you're fooling?  _ I swear, he must be part human.

If he were really smart, though, he'd come unlock the gate and let me in. Which is a ridiculous idea, but I really don't want to climb over the gate. I guess I have no choice, though, if I want to see Sukarno. I sigh and begin my ascent up the ten-foot-high metal gate. It rattles under my weight, but the more it shakes, the faster I climb. I have to get back into that forest before daybreak. Eventually I topple over onto the other side, landing hard on my right arm.

"Shit!" I exclaim, wincing. But there's no time to lose; it'll be daylight before I know it, and I have to get back to Rasi's before he wakes up and wonders where the hell I am. Brushing off the pain, I get up and sprint into the forest at full speed, hoping all the orangutans are asleep. They sleep in trees, Nadya told me. So if any of them are awake and wandering about, it's going to be very unfortunate when I crash head-on into one while running through the dark forest. I may as well be blind for all I can see right now; I barely know when to swerve around trees, and about every thirty feet, I trip over a rock or root or something.

As I'm brushing dirt off of my knees after my eighth fall not counting the gate, the waning gibbous moon appears from behind a cloud, shedding light on the forest before me. I now see that the rock where Sukarno and I met is straight ahead.  _ Perfect. _ I continue charging through the moon-illuminated forest, coming to an abrupt stop when I reach the rock. I peer all around it, but no Sukarno. I try the tree I was searching when I first heard the whistle. There  _ is  _ a bird's nest there I hadn't seen before, but no Sukarno. I continue a few more feet into the forest. No Sukarno.

I sigh, figuring I should just head back. I I turn and start walking back the way I came. All that falling and jumping over the gate for nothing...I shake my head, when I feel a rough hand clap my shoulder. I shout and jump a foot in the air at the unexpected contact.

"Well now," chuckles a gravelly voice, "there's no need to be afraid of me."

"Sukarno?" I turn to face the owner of the voice, my heart still beating hard from being startled. Standing there, his face bathed in the moonlight, is the brawny, unkempt Javanese man I had come here searching for, still wearing his brown loincloth from before.

"Decide to come live in the forest yet?" Sukarno asks.

_ What?  _ "I, uh...no," I stammer. "I just...wanted to come see you again."

At this, he looks taken aback as well. "Oh, well, I...I guess I should be honored," he says. "Come with me to my shelter, Duncan, so no one sees us."

Not saying another word, he leads me deep—very deep—into the forest. We don't stop walking until we reach a wooden shelter, made of big branches and scraps of bark. Sukarno pulls up the five-foot-long scrap of bark serving as a door and beckons me inside the shelter. The inside is cushioned with dirt and leaves. It looks just like a little house, except there's only space for one person to sleep, and no rooms or anything. I like it.

"Welcome to my shelter, Duncan," says Sukarno, handing me a banana leaf filled with some kind of tiny fruit. "I didn't think you'd come back."

"I just...we seem to share the same views on people," I reply, still in disbelief. Sukarno's unlike anyone I've ever met before.

"I see," Sukarno says, nodding. "You came here to ask me to help you deal with someone." He roots through a large white parcel, which, upon further examination, I can see is an old discarded tablecloth full of man-made hunting tools. He emits a low, animalistic sound, halfway between a growl and a laugh, and holds up a sharp-looking piece of rock. "Will this do?" he asks me.

"What? No!" I shake my head, incredulous. But then I think of Iwan, and the idea becomes a little more tempting. I mean, no one knows Sukarno exists, so he's probably completely off the legal radar, but still. I probably shouldn't plot to kill my coworker, even if he is a total jerk.

"I'm not looking to  _ kill _ anyone," I explain to Sukarno. "Like I said, I just...wanted to see you again." Ugh. I make a mental note to  _ never  _ say anything like that to Nadya.

"That's all?" Sukarno's eyebrows draw in together.

"Is that bad?"

Sukarno doesn't answer for a moment, just stares into space and nods to himself. Then he focuses his attention back on me and says, "No, not bad. I just...can't imagine why."

"I know how you feel," I reply, thinking of Nadya batting those gorgeous eyelashes at me, of Mikha claiming me as her friend so quickly. I'm just some poor dude from Australia, after all. And I shave maybe every couple of months. I can't be that attractive.

"So, Duncan," says Sukarno, "now that you've seen me, what are you going to do?"

"Well, I thought we'd... _ talk _ ," I quip. "Tell me more about yourself. Why do you choose to live out here?"

Sukarno gives me another long look, and I wonder if his past is so painful he can't bear to even think about it. I wonder if...oh, God, maybe he's an escaped murderer hiding out in the woods! Why do I never think of these things until it's too late?

But Sukarno says, "Like I told you earlier, I live out here to carry on my dead family's traditions."

Oh, yeah, he did say that. "How did your family die?" I ask, tossing back some of the fruit he gave me. I guess if he  _ is  _ an escaped murderer, I'll find out soon enough.

"My parents were killed by a falling tree hunting for food," Sukarno says, not elaborating.

"I'm sorry," I say, hoping the condolences don't bother him. "When did that happen?"

"You think I remember?" Sukarno snorts. "I was just a kid myself. I don't keep track of—what do they call them?— _ years. _ "

"You mean you've never celebrated a birthday?" I ask. I've skipped birthdays, too, but only because we were too poor to celebrate.

"What's  _ that _ ?" Sukarno demands.

This guy is really something. "Um, a birthday? It's the anniversary of the day you were ...  _ born _ ," I reply. "You don't know that?"

"Interesting thing to celebrate," Sukarno says. "You'd think no one else had ever been born before."

I laugh. "Yeah, I've met people who think birthdays are the most important things in the world." Namely my neighbors back in Sydney, whose parties Mom forced me to go to only so we could get a free square meal for once.

Sukarno says, "I'm sorry you met them."

Um... _ okay. _ "Anyway," I continue, "did you have more family? Or was it just your parents and you?"

"I had two brothers," Sukarno replies, "but they're dead, too."

"How did they die?"

"My older brother," Sukarno begins, "killed my younger brother. Then he killed himself." Sukarno stares at the ground.

"I'm sorry," I say again. I hope he can tell I mean it. I never say it if I don't.

"For what? It's not your fault." Sukarno is still staring at the ground.

"Do you know why he did it?" I ask.

"Because humans are evil," Sukarno spits. "There was no reason for him to do it."

I'm starting to get impatient; all I want is to find out more about him. "That still doesn't explain why you're out here."

"My parents would have wanted me to continue living out here," Sukarno explains. "They hated society. So I do it for them, and try not to think about my brothers."

"That's...horrible," I say.

"What about you, Duncan?" asks Sukarno. "Tell me about yourself."

"Well," I say, "I've been poor my whole life. My father left my mother before I was even born. My mother and I—"

"If I wanted to have a family, I'd stay with them," Sukarno interrupts. He shakes his head. "Humans are evil."

"Anyway," I continue, "my mother and I lived in this crappy apartment in Sydney, and we—."

"Buildings are ugly," Sukarno interjects.

"They sure are," I agree. "We barely survived on what we had, but my mother was able to support me for eleven years. But then she lost her job, and she couldn't anymore. So she sent me to Canberra to live with my Uncle Jacob. He was a lot better off than she was. My mother died when I was thirteen. I never got to say goodbye." I sigh at the thought.

"I'm sorry," Sukarno says, taking me by surprise.

I nod. "Thanks. Anyway, my uncle died seven months ago, too. So I stayed with his godson, to whom he had left his house, but eventually—"

"Why didn't he leave it to you?" Sukarno demands. "You were the one living with him. That's not right."

Does he think Uncle Jacob was  _ unfair  _ to me? If so, he's got it all wrong! And why does he have to keep interrupting me!? I could hardly get him to talk when  _ I  _ was the one asking him questions, and now that I'm telling him about myself, he's...Whatever. The guy probably hasn't had a conversation in thirty years, and he's clearly bent on abolishing the human race. Of course he's got a few screws loose.

"Well, I'm sure my uncle  _ would've  _ left something to me," I explain, "but he died so suddenly, and his lawyer never changed his will."

Sukarno's dark eyes bore into my own. "I didn't understand half of what you said, but wow, what a mess. Continue."

"Yes," I say. "Eventually, I decided to leave. I'd seen an advertisement for a job at Orangutan Rescue Project, so I—"

"A job," Sukarno snorts. It sounds like it's hard for him to get the word out. "Why do you need a job? Or money? You know where that will help you? In society, that's where. I've never touched money in my life, and look. I'm still alive."

"Well, I don't know," I say. "I think there's more to a job than money. I chose this one because it involves helping orangutans. I've always loved helping animals. And I'm not sure all humans are evil, either."

"But they're awful!" Sukarno protests. "I always run when I hear those orangutan conservationists coming."

"I know," I reply. "You up and went as soon as they came for me!"

Sukarno shrugs. "Can't have them finding me and trying to reform me into a civilized member of society."

I'm tempted to plead Nadya and Mikha's case; I really do like them. Rasi, too. But I get the feeling I won't sway Sukarno easily, so I don't bother trying.

Sukarno locks eyes with me and pleads, "Promise me you won't tell them I'm here."

"I won't," I promise, but as I do, wonder if it really is the best decision. Maybe he really does need some help. Then again, I already trusted him not to kill me. I should just let him live how he wants.

"Thank you, Duncan," says Sukarno.

We continue talking until the sky gets light. Sukarno tells me all about how he learned to survive in the wild, from picking berries to building a shelter. He's explaining to me how to clean a fish when the first rays of light peek through the holes in the shelter.

"Oh, shit, I have to go!" I exclaim, jumping up.

"What's the matter?" Sukarno raises his eyebrows, but doesn't get up.

"I have to get back to the guy I'm staying with. I snuck out here while it was still dark."

"Oh, I see," says Sukarno. He sounds like he's holding back a chuckle. "Well, don't keep your, uh,  _ friend _ waiting. But do come back. I'll teach you to hunt. And remember, no one knows I'm here."

"Got it. See you tonight!" I say, then bolt out of Sukarno's shelter and through the forest, following our footprints in the dirt (mine of my sneakers; his of his bare feet) and memorizing the path as I charge through it. I make my way out of the forest without tripping this time. By the time I make it to the gate, the sun is completely out. Better make this quick.

I climb up the gate, grateful I can actually see this time, hoping no one sees me. Once I reach the top of the gate, I jump over it, landing on my feet on the other side. I wince as the impact pulses all the way through my legs up to my hip sockets, then take off at a dead sprint back to Rasi's house. By the time I get in the door, the house is still silent. I creep into the bedroom, where Rasi is still sound asleep on his air mattress (he'd insisted on giving me his bed).  _ Thank God.  _ I glance at the clock. Seven-twenty. I climb into bed, hoping it'll just look like I've been asleep all along.


	7. Worldly

I've barely drifted back off to sleep when Rasi's alarm goes off, blaring _The_ _Star-Spangled Banner_ throughout his tiny bedroom. Rasi sits bolt upright in bed, snatches his phone off his nightstand, and turns the alarm off. Then he yawns and stretches before facing me and giving me a sleepy smile. "Morning, Duncan."

"Morning, Rasi," I reply.

He gets out of bed and sloppily tosses the covers back over the pillows. "You sleep all right? I slept like a  _ baby. _ "

"Yeah." Mentally, I breathe a sigh of relief. He has no idea I ever left last night.

"That's good," Rasi replies. "So, you hungry?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Eggs and toast all right?"

"How very American of you," I say. "And sure, sounds great."

"What can I say? I'm a multicultural guy." He grins and gestures toward his  _ I love Australia  _ T-shirt.

I feel myself smile back. "I can see that."

"Anyway," Rasi says, "Why don't you get dressed, and I'll go to the kitchen and get cooking."

"All right."

Only after Rasi is gone do I notice all the posters. Every inch of the walls, and even part of the ceiling, is plastered with posters of more famous landmarks than I ever knew existed. The Eiffel Tower here, the Leaning Tower of Pisa there, Big Ben above the wardrobe, the Empire State Building right in the middle of the ceiling, and many others I don't know. But the crowning glory has to be the map. Oh God, the  _ map.  _ On the door to Rasi's walk-in closet is a map of the world, with half the countries in Europe marked with either a green check, a red X, or a black question mark, and a big pink heart around the United States.

_ Wow.  _ I shake my head and wonder how many places Rasi's been to. I don't think even Uncle Jacob had gone to so many different countries, and traveling was an integral part of his job.

Over breakfast, Rasi and I talk about traveling, and he surprises me by telling me he's never actually been outside of Indonesia before.

"No way." I slam my hands down on the table, mouth agape. "But you have all those posters in your room!"

"When I got promoted last year," Rasi explains, "I splurged—is that the right expression?—and bought posters online of every single landmark I want to visit in my lifetime."

"Yep, that's the right word," I confirm. "And you remind me of my Uncle Jacob. He was an interpreter, and fluent in six languages, including Indonesian."

Rasi's eyes nearly pop out of his head. " _ Really?!  _ But... _ why?  _ Why would he want to learn Indonesian? Native in English, the hardest, most important language in the world, and he wanted to speak Indonesian?" He shakes his head. "I don't get it."

"Well," I say, "I don’t know if it’s the  _ most  _ important language. He was an interpreter, and he had a lot of Indonesian clients."

"I see." Rasi nods, then frowns. "Wait,  _ had _ ?"

"He died seven months ago," I sigh. "Surprise heart attack."

"Oh," Rasi's face falls. "I'm so sorry," he says, and I can tell he means it.

"Thanks," I reply. "But yeah, he was real into other cultures too."

Rasi smiles. "I wish I could have met him."

I smile back. "He would have liked you, that's for sure." I look down at my empty plate and sigh again.


	8. Demoted (on the first day?!)

"Duncan! You came back after all!" Mikha whoops, jumping up and down as Rasi and I approach the platform where the orangutans eat.

"Yeah," I laugh. "Why wouldn't I?"

Mikha shrugs. "I don't know. But I'm happy you did. Nadya won't stop asking about you."

Nadya, coming up behind Mikha with an adorable baby orangutan in her arms, immediately goes red and hisses, "Mikha!"

Huh. That's not the first time she's blushed around me. I wonder. Plus she looks so different today. She's not wearing that cloth over her head, and her long black hair is pulled into a low ponytail that reaches all the way down her back. Most of it stays neat, but a few strands have come loose, framing her face beautifully.

_ God, Duncan, stop staring! Don't be a creep,  _ I chastise myself, and literally kick myself straight in the shin. This hurts more than I meant for it to.

"Ow!" I complain, grabbing my shin and hopping up and down.

"What was that?!" demands Mikha. Nadya giggles.

My face feels hot. "Oh, nothing."

"We were worried you wouldn't come back," Mikha says. "You're late. It's ten past eight."

"Oh, um, my bad." We all turn to look at Rasi, who is turning slightly red. "Don't tell Amy, please."

Mikha rolls her eyes. "That's the second time this week, Rasi. Well, come with me, Duncan. I talked to Amy, and she say you not ready to work with the big orangutan. So, you will work with the babies. Iwan will supervise you."

I stop short. "I-Iwan?"

"I'm sorry," Mikha says. "But there is no other option. Just come to me if he bothers you."

"Okay," I sigh, defeated. I really do need this job.

"You should probably go see Amy," Mikha says.

"Yeah, I'll go now." I sprint off towards the office, kind of dreading what is to come. I know I don't like Iwan, but I have a funny feeling about Amy, too. What kind of person would date a monster like Iwan?

I tiptoe into Amy's office, hoping she's in a good mood today.

"Hello, Amy." I approach her desk.

"Duncan! You're late. Come with me. I have to give you your uniform, and then I'll send you off to Iwan."

I follow Amy into a closet filled with cleaning supplies and uniforms. She eyes me for a moment, then fishes around for a uniform for me. "This should fit," she says, throwing the ORP green T-shirt and white pants at me, not making eye contact.

"Thank you," I say.

"You can change in the men's room, and then I'll take you to Iwan. You will be learning how to train the baby orangutans to live independently. Iwan will give you instructions. And today is the day the babies are getting their shots, so Iwan may ask you to help him with that too."

Shots and Iwan don't sound like a very pleasant combination, but at least I think I can try to comfort the babies.

Amy leads me outside to a group of cages not far from the office. There Iwan is waiting for me, along with another beefy-looking Indonesian guy. Great, there are two of them.

"Iwan, I trust that you and Paul will teach Duncan how to care for the babies?"

"Of course,  _ cintaku _ ," croons Iwan, putting on a sickeningly sweet grin. I fight the urge to audibly gag.

"Aww, Iwan, you're my love, too!" The two kiss deeply, and I notice Paul grimace.

"Anyway, I'll see you later. Teach him right." Amy speaks to Iwan and Paul like I'm not even there, and marches off.

"So," says Iwan. "It's shot time. You hold the babies, and Paul and I give the shot."

"But what about teaching me how to actually work with them?" I protest. "I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't want to hurt any of them."

Iwan sniffs. "We'll worry about teaching you things once we decide you're actually worthy of working here," he sneers. Paul stands behind him, a huge smirk on his face.

"Paul, get the first baby," says Iwan, hunting around behind the cages and coming up with a tray of syringes.

"On it," says Paul, yanking the first cage open and wrestling out the baby orangutan, who screams in protest.

"Hey, be gentle; you're hurting him!" I cry.

Paul glares at me. "Who said you were the boss now?" he demands.

"Stop arguing, you two," snaps Iwan. "Give it to Duncan."

Paul nearly throws the baby orangutan at me, and I try to cradle him in my arms as best I can. I held someone's baby once at Uncle Jacob's funeral, so this shouldn't be that different.

"It's okay, little guy," I coo. "Just a quick pinch, and then it will all be over."

"Like he can hear you," Iwan says, syringe in hand. Without warning he jabs it into the orangutan's leg.

The orangutan begins to cry and thrash. I desperately try to calm him down, but to no avail. Paul tries to hold his legs down, which only makes him fight harder. Suddenly I feel the orangutan's nails scratch my neck.

"Ow!" I shout. I feel blood start to run down my neck.

"What do you think you're doing?" a girl's voice demands. Before I even register what just happened, Mikha is taking the baby orangutan out of my arms, shushing him in an attempt to calm him down. The baby finally quiets down, but lets out another cry when Mikha accidentally presses against his leg. Mikha examines the injection site, which is already swelling up.

"Who gave him the shot?" she demands, narrowing her eyes at Iwan.

"Duncan did it. That's why he cry out. Duncan not know what he doing."

"Yeah, Duncan did it!" says Paul a little too eagerly.

"I don't believe either of you," says Mikha. "Look at his leg! He's going to need pain medication. You've done this before, Iwan; I know you did it again."

Mikha places the orangutan gently back in his cage, and mashes up some bananas and pain medication for him. Then she turns to me. "Come on, Duncan, let's get you cleaned up, and then I have a report to file for Iwan's behavior today."

"Go ahead," taunts Iwan. "She'll never believe you."

Mikha glares at Iwan. "Challenge accepted." Then she takes my arm and leads me back to the office to get cleaned up.

"Duncan! What happened to you?" Nadya meets me and Mikha in the doorway.

"Iwan gave Bintang a shot painful enough to give him a wound, and he scratched Duncan."

"What an idiot!" Nadya puts a hand on my shoulder. "Are you okay, Duncan?"

I manage a small smile for her. "I'm fine, just need to get cleaned up."

"Did someone call the... _ doctor?"  _ Rasi appears in the doorway with a first-aid kit, a skinny guy with tousled black hair and a baby face behind him.

"Don't forget his assistant!" The guy with the baby face adds in an accent I've never heard before.

"Oh, please, not you two," says Mikha, but she only partially hides her grin.

"We overheard Iwan and Paul talking about what just happened," says Rasi. "Eric and I will make them pay later, don't worry. But for now, here." He opens the first-aid kit and hands me some alcohol pads and bandaids.

"Thanks," I say. I rub the wound with the alcohol pads, wincing slightly at the sting. I put on the bandaids and toss my garbage, passing Rasi's friend on the way. "What did you say your name was?" I ask.

"Eric," he smiles, "from Singapore. " _ Apa khabar?"  _

I stare at him. "What?"

"He's asking how you are," says Rasi. "Sorry he didn't speak English. He forgets he's not in Singapore anymore.

"I do not!" Eric turns to him with an offended expression. The two start mock-wrestling.

"Ignore them," says Mikha. "This happens every day."

"Well, they're going to have to stop now," says Nadya. "Amy wants to see everyone in the office."

"Are we in trouble?" I bite my lip.

"If we are, Rasi and I will create a distraction!" exclaims Eric.

"Let's go see what this is all about," says Rasi.

When we get to Amy's office, twenty or so people are gathered there, talking amongst themselves. Iwan and Paul are standing by Amy, smirking.

"Everyone, listen, please," says Amy, standing in the middle of the room. "I gathered you all here today because one of you filed a report against Iwan claiming he mishandled a baby orangutan enough to hurt it."

"It's true," Mikha mutters under her breath. "I saw everything."

"Whether or not this is true," continues Amy, "we lost three employees today when they heard of the news. Let this be a warning to all of you that these antics need to stop. I can't be losing employees over silly rumors that may or may not be true."

"It's not a rumor, and it  _ is  _ true!" Mikha bursts out. "I saw everything. Iwan jabbed that needle into Bintang's leg, and the poor guy was in so much pain he hurt Duncan."

"She's  _ lying _ ," Iwan tells Amy, his voice perfectly calm. Duncan give shot, and not know what he doing. Mikha just want me to lose job."

"Mikha, I trust that you will not antagonize Iwan in the future," says Amy.

Mikha gapes. "I never—"

Iwan interrupts her. "Amy, love, to avoid this in future, maybe Duncan not work with baby orangutan. He not qualified."

"I think you're right," agrees Amy. "Duncan, why don't you file papers in my office from now on. I can set up an extra desk for you to use."

I consider protesting, but decide against it. Any job is better than no job. "I can do that," I say, but I feel my shoulders slump. Iwan smirks. It takes everything in me not to punch him in the face.

"All right, then, it's settled," says Amy. Then she claps her hands. "Everyone, back to work. And remember, no more acting on rumors that may or may not be true. I can't lose any more staff."

Everyone hurries out of the office. Mikha, Iwan, and I stay behind.

Iwan turns to me and sneers. "That will teach you to butt in where you not belong,  _ paper boy _ ."

"For the last time, Iwan, leave him  _ alone."  _ Mikha stands by me. "Just because everyone knows you're the one who should have been fired does not mean you can keep harassing Duncan."

Iwan gapes at Mikha, trying to think of a comeback, then scowls and stomps out of the office.

"I'm sorry you won't get to work with the babies, but look at it this way. You won't have Iwan as your supervisor."

"Yes, but sharing an office with  _ Amy?  _ Is that any better?"

"Fair point," says Mikha. "But I'll be able to check in with you more often this way."

"Thank you for standing up for me, Mikha." I give her a grateful smile.

She grins right back at me. "I'd die before I didn't. Filing papers shouldn't be  _ too  _ bad. I think we might even have a beanbag chair somewhere. One of the old American employees brought it, but he forgot all about it. And after Amy leaves, you can always come hang out with us and the orangutans."

"Thanks, Mikha,” I say. 'I guess it doesn't all sound too bad."


	9. Late-Night Nature Excursion

“Duncan, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you coming to help me gather fruit. I didn’t think I needed your help, but thanks to you we’ve gathered three times what I normally gather by myself.”

“It was my pleasure, Sukarno. It’s nice to get back to nature. I never knew there were so many different types of fruit. You could eat like a king out in the forest!”

“Yes, yes you can. I’ve eaten well my whole life. But I’ve  _ never  _ gathered this much fruit in one hunt. Now that the sky is dark, won’t you come enjoy this feast with me?”

I nod eagerly and grab three mangoes. Sukarno starts devouring a bunch of bananas.

We sit in silence, eating fruit to our hearts’ content. Piles of peels and pits grow around us. Once I’ve had my fill, I say, “Just think of this. If I ever get lost in the forest, I won’t go hungry. Though I don’t think I will get lost. I’m good with directions.”

“I tell you, Duncan,’ says Sukarno,” I’m impressed. You’ve found your way here to my shelter twice in the dark now, and you didn’t even need a compass.”

I grin. ‘Forget the compass. Look, my phone has GPS.” I pull out my phone and show it to Sukarno, and he stares at it, completely puzzled.

“What is  _ that  _ abomination of a man-made device?” he snorts.

“It’s an iPhone. You can call people on it, but you can also use it to go on the internet or take pictures.”

“Call people? Internet?”

“Never mind,” I say. 

“Those crazy humans...they call themselves  _ civilized?  _ That thing looks like it was created by someone who has so much time they don’t know what to do with their life.”

I chuckle. I don’t completely disagree with him. But suddenly after owning an iPhone for a few days I can’t imagine life without one. 

“Perhaps, Duncan,” says Sukarno, “you should come live with me in the forest. Before that phone thing turns you into a walking robot.”

Oh. “I…” I trail off, completely unsure how to reply. 

“No, really,” says Sukarno. “It’s not just the phone. I’ve taken a liking to you, Duncan. You don’t care what anybody thinks is ‘normal’ or not. You do as you please, and you resent people almost as much as I do. So I’m asking you to stay.”

“Sukarno, I don’t know what to say. I enjoy your company as well, don’t get me wrong, but I need the job. I need the money.”

“Money is the root of all evil.”

I think of Iwan, of Amy. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

“So what do you say? You ready to live out here with me?”

“Sukarno, I don’t think I can. There’s someone I want to be with.” Oh God, what am I saying?!

Sukarno frowns. “What do you mean?’  
I think of Nadya for a moment, then choose the easier explanation. ‘I’ve made some friends at work. I don’t just want to work for the money. I want to get to know them better, too.” If it weren’t for them, I’d probably have left ORP by now. I’d go get money somewhere where I _wouldn’t_ be tormented by Iwan. Or have a crappy boss like Amy. A psycho boyfriend _and_ a job running a business caring for animals she couldn’t give a damn about? I wonder what’s in it for her. Must be the money. Or maybe being a business owner gives her some kind of power trip. I don’t know. 

Sukarno looks hurt. “I see.  _ Friends. _ Just wait till you start making more money than them and then they all turn on you just like that.” He snaps his fingers. 

“They would never! If it weren’t for Mikha, I don’t know where I would be. Rasi’s letting me live with him. And Nadya…” I sort of sigh. 

“You already have somewhere to live, then.”

“Yes, and my friends helped me move in. They got me a ton of stuff, too. Too much, even. And they told me not to pay them back, though I intend to at some point anyway. They’re very generous people.”

Sukarno snorts again. “If that’s what you want to believe, Duncan, then go ahead. I still believe that humans cannot be inherently good. But I won’t try to change your mind. If I know anything about humans, it’s that they’re damn stubborn.” 

I give him a wry smile. “Thank you, Sukarno. And I can still come see you, right? I can still call you my friend? 

“Yes. You are always welcome here, Duncan. And you can call me your... _ friend.” _

“Wonderful. Now, as much as I would love to stay here all night, I have to get back to Rasi’s. I told him I was going on a late-night nature excursion.” Sukarno would probably die of disgust for civilization if he were discovered, so  _ late-night nature excursion  _ has become code for  _ going to see Sukarno.  _

“And I trust that you’ll tell him you’re going on another one soon?”

I smile. “Yes, I will. Goodbye, Sukarno.”

“Goodbye, Duncan. Take care of yourself out there.”

I nod, crawl out of Sukarno’s shelter, then take my time walking through the forest. It’s so nice and quiet at night, and I can feel a slight warm breeze caressing the back of my neck. I know the forest ground better now, as I walk out here a lot on my breaks from work, so I don’t trip over quite as many tree roots as I used to. 

It’s still dark when I reach the gate. I climb up it and propel myself over the top, landing hard on my feet. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did last time. In another twenty minutes I’m back at Rasi’s. I unlock the door with the spare key he gave me, gently shutting it behind me. As I tiptoe through the living room, I trip on something I can’t see, which sends me sprawling into the bookshelf. I catch myself, but I knock something on top of the bookshelf behind it, and it lands on the ground with a loud thud. I wince, hoping the sound doesn’t wake Rasi up, and wait a few minutes. When Rasi doesn’t come out to check on the noise, I figure it’s safe to go back to bed and crack open the door to Rasi’s room. He’s asleep.  _ Thank God.  _ I climb into bed and shut my eyes, falling asleep within seconds. 

  
  



	10. King of the Fruits

“You a fraud,” snarls Iwan. “There not another explanation. How you come here with no orangutan experience and get job? You must be fraud.” 

“I am  _ not _ a fraud, Iwan.” I lock eyes with him. “I may not have the experience with orangutans that you have, but at least I don’t torture them behind my all-too-trusting fiancée’s back.”

“How dare you!” Iwan lunges at me. I block his punch, then dodge as he throws another. He pins my arms behind my back and reaches into my pocket.

“What are you doing?” I demand. He growls and holds up my wallet.

“Give that back, Iwan. That’s mine.” 

“Not until I expose you as fraud.” He hunts through my wallet, inspecting my identification. I stand guard, prepared to let him take my money but also prepared to knee him in the groin and take my wallet back if he tries to steal anything else.

Apparently unable to find anything wrong with any of my identification, Iwan glowers and takes out a photo of my mom and Uncle Jacob as kids that I’ve kept in my wallet for years, the only memory of them I have left. “What’s this all about?” 

“Give that  _ back, _ Iwan,” I demand. “That’s mine, too.” 

He tosses my wallet at my feet. “This is what I think of you.” He smirks, holds the photo high above his head where I don’t have a prayer of reaching it, and tears it to shreds. 

“IWAN!” I scream. 

He tosses the remnants of the photo to the ground, spits on them, and runs off. 

I retrieve my wallet, then stare at the ground for a long moment, the photo remnants becoming blurrier by the second. 

“Duncan, what’s wrong?” Nadya approaches me, her voice full of concern. 

I point to the photo remnants. “Iwan attacked me. He went through my wallet, determined to find some fake identification and expose me as a fraud. When he couldn’t, he destroyed my last photo of my mom and my Uncle Jacob from when they were kids.”

“I'm so sorry,” says Nadya, laying a hand on my arm.

“Thanks,” I say, reaching a hand up to brush my fingers across her cheek. She freezes for a second, but a moment later I swear she leans into my palm. 

“Awww, how adorable!” I turn away from Nadya to snarl at the intruder, but drop the angry expression when I see it’s only Mikha, her hands behind her back.  _ Hmmm. _

“Oh, um, hey, Mikha,” I say. “What have you got behind your back?”

Mikha grins and ignores my question. “Hey yourself. What's up?”

“Oh, not much. Just more drama with Iwan.” I give her a wry smile, trying not to show how much what Iwan did got to me. 

Mikha sees right through my façade. “What happen?”

I fill her in. She glowers on my behalf. “Seriously, if he don't ease up on you I teach him lesson. He has no right.”

Nadya shrugs. “No, he doesn't, but how are you going to do that?”

“With this.” Mikha finally takes her hands from behind her back, holding her palms out. In her hands is a large, spiky green fruit I've never seen before.

Nadya groans. “Oh,  _ Mikh!  _ Not durian!” She plugs her nose, though I don’t know why.

Mikha laughs. “ _ Iya _ , durian! King of the fruits! If that not put Iwan in his place, I don't know what will.”

Sukarno never warned me about durian _.  _ Is it poisonous or something?

“You can't keep that here,” Nadya hisses. “Amy said no durians on the premises ever. It's true!” she exclaims in response to my snicker. Then she turns back to Mikha and says, “You know the non-natives—and even some of the natives—can't stand the smell. If one of them comes by, you’ll get in trouble. Where did you even get that?”

“Oh, I found it in the woods,” says Mikha, taking a plastic knife out of her pocket and grinning at me and Nadya. “Time for a snack,” she sings. She starts whittling away at the fruit’s spiky flesh.

“Mikha, don't do that!” Nadya throws her arms up in the air. “You'll never be able to cut that open to eat with  _ that  _ knife, and the premises will smell for days.”

“Why?” I ask.

“You'll see in a moment,” Mikha grins. A second later the durian breaks open. Mikha sticks her tongue out at Nadya and holds half of the durian in front of my face. “Here, smell.”

“Ugh!” It smells like a mixture of garbage and rotting onions. I turn my face away, feeling my stomach heave. I hunch over, my hands on my knees.

“Duncan, you all right?” Nadya demands. She lays a hand on my back. “Look at what you did,” she chides Mikha.

“I'm fine,” I say, straightening up. I didn't throw up, but I came pretty damn close. That durian smells  _ awful. _

__ Mikha frowns at me, apologetic. “Sorry.”.

“It's fine.”

“It doesn't taste bad. Actually, it tastes pretty good. Just plug your nose.” She breaks a piece off of the pod-like seed inside and pops it into her mouth. “See, it's not so bad. Just don't get too close to my face for the next, oh, forty-eight hours or so; after eating durian your breath smell like biohazard.” She grins and holds the durian out to me, not so close to my nose this time. “Want to try some?”

“No, thanks!” I push her hand away.

“Oh, come on!  _ Pleeeeeease?”  _ Mikha pouts like a little girl.

“Is that how you begged your dad to take you to work with him?” I tease her.

Mikha swats my arm. “You didn't answer my question. Yes or no?” She makes praying hands around the durian, giving me her most overblown puppy eyes.

I sigh. “Oh, all right. But if I throw up, you're hosing off the patio.” 

“Fair enough.” Mikha holds the durian out to me again. I break off a piece of the pod and reluctantly bring it up to my mouth. God, it smells.

“Plug your nose,” Nadya suggests, her lips spreading into a small smile. Every day I want to kiss those lips a little more, but today is not the day, if durian tastes anything like it smells .  I take Nadya’s advice and pop the durian into my mouth. Mikha’s right; it actually doesn't taste bad. Kinda like custard. I still much prefer mango, though. I prefer my food to smell as well as taste edible. 

“Well?” asks Mikha. “What do you think?”

“Not bad,” I say, glancing at Nadya for approval. 

“You are very brave,” she says. She rewards me with a proud smile and eats a piece of the durian herself.

Just then, Patrick comes by with a blonde girl named Carrie. Both of them instantly hold their noses. 

“Oh, my God!” cries Carrie. “Did something  _ die  _ over here?”

“Nope,” says Mikha. “We're just eating durian. Come join us!”

“Oh, well, we'd love to,” Patrick begins, “but we really must be going.”

Carrie grabs his hand and pulls him over to us. “Let's try it!” she exclaims. “I've read about it on the Internet, but I've never had it before.” 

I almost wish they hadn't come over. I'm still not comfortable around the others, and they still don't really accept me as one of them. A few of them—like Patrick; I've never spoken to Carrie—have tried to be nice to me, but most of them seem no different from the condescending… _ people _ I've run into all my life. I'm beginning to believe what Sukarno said about money being useless, because maybe if the others didn't have much either, they wouldn't look down on me like they do.

“Hey, Duncan.” Patrick gives me a nod.

“Hey, Patrick.” This interaction feels stilted and uncomfortable. I feel my cheeks get hot.

“You try the durian?” Patrick asks.

“Huh?” I didn't realize he was still speaking to me. “Oh, yeah, um, I did. It isn't bad.”

“Hey, it's not!” Carrie smiles at Patrick. “Just plug your nose. Here.” She hands him a piece of durian. 

I fade into the background as Patrick tries the durian and says he never wants to be within a hundred feet of another one as long as he lives. While he, Carrie, and Mikha laugh, I step off to the side a little and don't say anything. Nadya notices this and comes to stand by me, giving me a reassuring smile. I smile back, liking her even more than I did just a minute ago.

Suddenly, Nadya’s smile disappears. So do Mikha’s, Carrie’s, and Patrick’s. All four turn to the left and glare. I soon see why: Iwan is loping toward us, trademark leer on his face. I'm sure he thinks he looks tough; I think he looks like a pretentious idiot. He reaches us and gets right up in my face. Of course.

“You,” he growls. “I see you tell on me to your girlfriend. I know you trying to make me lose my job.”

I back up, which is a bad idea because he only closes in on me even more. “I never—”

Iwan snarls, “You not fool me. When Amy hear, she fire me. Then I am have nothing. Bitch have no  _ apresiasi _ for what her boyfriend do for her, working with those  _ dirty  _ animal. They disappear from world soon. Why we not let them die?”

I push Iwan away from me and get up in  _ his  _ face. “ _ You _ listen,” I snap. “Who do you think you are, talking about your girlfriend that way? If I didn't already know she'd never believe me, I'd go tell her what you called her right now. And the orangutans deserve nothing more than for their species to be restored and removed from the endangered species list. And you hate orangutans, yet you slither into Amy’s bed for money, huh? You know what that makes you? An impostor and a phony, that's what!” 

“Yeah, _Duncan!_ ” Rasi, who had come by with Eric while I was yelling at Iwan, claps me on the shoulder and gives me an impressed smile. Then he marches over to Iwan and says, “No more messing with Duncan, okay? Or else I’ll—oh God, is that... _durian?!”_ He sniffs the air, and his body starts heaving. His eyes widen in panic at the sight of the durian. And as Iwan opens his mouth to say something—probably call him a wimp—Rasi throws up all over him. 

Iwan shouts a long stream of Indonesian profanities, making Mikha and Eric burst out laughing and Nadya let out a slightly amused, slightly horrified chuckle. Even though I don't understand Iwan's words, I snicker, too; he got what he deserved. Rasi grabs the durian, holding it as far away from his face as possible, and runs and chucks it into the forest. Putra, who is wandering around, snatches the durian and runs off.

“Hey!” exclaims Mikha. “I was saving that for later!” 

Rasi sprints back over to us. When he reaches us, he puts his hands together and pleads, “Mikha, I'm begging you, no more durian  _ ever again _ . You know I can't stand it.” 

Mikha shrugs. “Sorry.” 

Iwan glares at all of us and snaps, “Wait till I tell Amy about this. And you,”—he points a finger at Rasi—“are buying me a new shirt. Tomorrow.”

Rasi shrugs. “We’ll see about that. How much do you owe me for your dinners over the years? I've lost count.”

Iwan growls again. He looks like a swamp monster. Covered in vomit. He really should go take care of that now.

“Speaking of which,” says Rasi, grinning at me, Mikha, and Nadya, “who wants ice cream? I'm hungry now, ‘cause I kinda just threw up. Don't worry, I'll pay.”

“Yeah, that sounds awesome!” Mikha does a little happy dance.

“I'll come, too,” says Nadya. “Duncan, won't you join?”

“Okay.” I can't eat too much, though. Sukarno is teaching me how to hunt tonight. 

“Count me in!” says Eric. 

“Us, too,” says Patrick. He and Carrie link arms. 

“Iwan, want to get ice cream with us?” Rasi teases.

“ _ Ngentot lu,”  _ Iwan growls. Rasi gives him the finger in response.

We all start heading to the parking lot, leaving Iwan fuming. And still covered in puke. Halfway to the parking lot, Mikha stops and turns around. 

“Hey, Iwan!” she calls. “Before you get changed, hose off the patio, will you?” 


	11. Double Romance

I shove the last of the day’s paperwork into my desk and head into the bathroom to change into my regular clothes. Today Mikha wants to go to the American bakery where she used to work. She said it was important. I said I’d go, but I still don’t think it’s a good idea to leave work early for this. ORP needs all the help it can get since five more people left last month after Iwan kicked around a disobedient baby orangutan, actually killing the poor thing. Part of me doesn’t blame those people for leaving, but the other part of me can’t believe them. Shouldn’t they have stuck around to stop Iwan from doing anything else? Didn’t they know ORP was short enough on staff already?

Sukarno is even pressuring me to leave. He thinks I should come live with him in the forest, and I’ll be honest, the thought is pretty damn tempting. No more Iwan, only woods as far as the eye can see. But I can’t possibly leave. The orangutans need care, and who knows, maybe with so many people gone Amy’ll get so desperate for staff she’ll have to ask me to work with the orangutans again. Plus I can’t leave because I want to be with Nadya. She and I have been getting closer and closer, but I haven’t found the courage to ask her out yet. I’ve never done it before, and I don’t want to make a fool of myself if she says no. I can only imagine how Iwan would taunt me.

I smooth my hair down one more time, straighten out my shirt, and leave the bathroom to meet my friends in the parking lot. 

****

_ “Ya ampun _ _ ,  _ this place looks totally different!” Mikha exclaims, looking around her former workplace in shock. 

“Yeah, we just finished some renovating. This is our third day reopening,” says the guy behind the counter in an American accent. There are three other waitstaff lollygagging behind the bakery counter pretending to be busy, all of whom have clearly American features—one girl has blonde hair, another has an abundance of nut brown curls, and the skinny guy reorganizing one of the racks of cakes has platinum-blond-bleached hair that is starting to grow out, his sandy brown roots a stark contrast against the fading white-blond dye. 

“Yes, it looks bigger now. I work here before, but now I work at Orangutan Rescue Project since one year.” 

“Nice,” says the guy. “I’ve only been here for two months.”

As Mikha continues her conversation with the guy behind the counter, I offer Nadya my arm. She takes it and we make our way over to one of the bakery cases full of donuts, cookies, and pastries.  _ Mmm. _

“What looks good to you, Duncan?” Nadya asks me. 

“I think I want one of those donuts,” I say, pointing at the plate labeled  _ Boston Kreme Donuts _ . I almost feel my mouth watering just at the sight of the chocolate-glazed doughnuts. “Interesting name, though.”

“Boston is a city in New England. New England is the northeastern part of America,” Rasi states, clearly proud of his knowledge. 

“Get your head out of the clouds, Rasi; you live in Indonesia,” Eric hisses. 

“Yeah, but my soul is in America!” Rasi protests, elbowing Eric. The two wander off to the rack of fancy-looking cakes, still jostling each other and arguing over which cake to take into work tomorrow. 

Mikha shakes her head. “You two…” she trails off, then turns to me. “This is why I can’t bring Rasi to an American bakery. Or an American anything. He always thinks he is  _ in  _ America.”

Nadya giggles. “Maybe he will be some day.” 

“I hope so. I don’t know how much more I can stand,” Mikha says, but I can tell from her expression she’s joking. 

Nadya laughs again, louder this time. I smile at her, resisting the urge to just give her a big squeeze right then and there. Her laugh is so cute. 

“Where’s the manager?” an angry voice demands. “Those two idiots just knocked over that entire cake display!” 

I turn to see a large potbellied man jabbing a finger at the now dismantled cake rack, with Rasi and Eric in the middle, both clearly having faceplanted into expensive layer cakes. 

“Oh, my God.” Mikha rolls her eyes. 

“Look at Eric’s face; it’s covered in chocolate frosting!” Nadya cries. 

I can’t help but chuckle. “Hopefully Rasi didn’t fall into a durian cake.” 

The angry customer is now waving his arms around, throwing a tantrum. “I’ve never seen a business allow for such poor behavior. Why didn’t anyone stop these two? I want to speak to the manager!” he demands. 

“I-I’ll go get him for you, sir,” the guy with the platinum blond hair says, running into the kitchen to fetch the manager. The new guy is crouched behind the counter, hiding. 

“What’s the problem?” A young, scruffy-looking guy with a thick brown beard steps out behind the counter not two seconds later. 

“I was picking out a cake for my daughter’s birthday when these two  _ fools _ ”—again, he jabs his finger at Rasi and Eric— “wrestled each other right into the cake display, and knocked the entire thing over!”

The manager takes one glance at Rasi and Eric and sucks in his cheeks, seeming to venture off into another world for a moment, or maybe just having no idea how to react. But he snaps out of it and says to the potbellied man, “I’m sorry, sir. Someone will clean this up. Do you know which cake you wanted? I can have it made for you by tomorrow.” 

“Forget it, I don’t want your cake,” the man snaps. “And shame on you for allowing this kind of behavior in your bakery. You shouldn’t even be a manager!” 

And with that, he whirls around and storms out, letting the door slam behind him. 

“Alex, clean that up,” the manager says. The platinum blond guy nods and scrambles to find a mop. 

“You guys!” Mikha scolds Rasi and Eric, who are wiping their faces clean with their shirts. “Can’t we go anywhere without something like this happening?”

“Oh, give us a break, Mikha,” says Rasi. “Nothing quite like  _ this _ has ever happened before!”

“He’s got a point,” says Eric with a huge grin. “Give us a break, Mikha!”

“Mikha?” The manager, who was about to head back to the kitchen, does an about face, turning to stare at Mikha.

Mikha stares back, her mouth falling open. “Oh my God, Nate! I didn’t know you were the manager now!”

The manager—Nate—grins. “I am. Now no one tells me what to do.” 

“ _ He’s  _ the manager?” I whisper to Nadya. 

“Apparently so,” she replies. 

“He doesn’t  _ look  _ like a manager.” He looks way too young.

Nadya smiles at me. “Weren’t you just telling me in the car about how your Uncle Jacob told you you should get to know a person, and not just judge by appearances?” 

I feel myself blush, and I hide it by burying my face in her pink hijab. “Yes, I was, wasn’t I?” 

“So, Nate, tell me about the renovations. The space is twice as big now!” Mikha is deep in conversation with Nate, who is leaning just as far across the counter towards her as she is towards him. 

“Yeah, that happened,” Nate chuckles. “It was crazy for a while.” 

“Not as crazy as when I was here, I bet,” Mikha says in a voice I’ve never heard her use before. It was very much not like her bubbly little-girl voice. 

“Oh, yeah?” Even from here I can see Nate’s dark eyes gleaming. 

“I don’t like this guy,” hisses Rasi. 

“Smash a pie in his face!” says Eric. 

“Shhh! Don’t let him hear you say that.” Rasi claps a hand on Eric’s mouth. 

“Ow!” Eric complains. 

“Nice, nice,” I hear Nate saying to Mikha. “So how old are you now?”  
“Twenty,” Mikha bats her eyelashes. 

“Nice,” Nate says again. “I’m twenty-one.”

“Oh, you’re not that old then!” Mikha closes one eye and sticks her tongue out, teasing. 

“Nope, not really,” Nate chuckles. “So where are you working now?” 

“Orangutan Rescue Project. I love it!”  
“That’s cool. Doesn’t sound like a terrible job.” 

As Nate and Mikha chatter on, Rasi watches, his hands balling into fists. “I hate that guy already.” 

“Why? You jealous or something?” teases Eric. 

“Absolutely not!” Rasi punches Eric in the arm. Eric pokes him in the ribs. 

“Guys, please, not another fight,” pleads Nadya. “At least not in the bakery.” 

“As long as bakery guy here doesn’t try anything on Mikha, no one is getting punched,” says Rasi. He narrows his eyes at Nate, who is serving Mikha. “I don’t like the look of him at all.”

“You don’t even know him,” says Nadya. “Duncan was telling me earlier about something his Uncle Jacob said—that you should always get to know a person instead of just judging him or her. I’m sure he’s fine.” 

“Yeah, you’re just jealous.” Eric sticks his tongue out at Rasi. 

“You guys,” Mikha bounds over to us, grinning so wide I’m worried her face will snap in two. She is carrying a huge bakery box and a slip of paper. “I got us treats. Now let’s go!” 

As we make our way out onto the street, Rasi says, “No way I’m letting you pay for all that. This one’s on me. How much was it? Let me see that receipt.” He grabs the slip of paper, stares at it, and goes pale as a sheet. 

“Oh, come  _ on!  _ No way! Mikh, you did  _ not  _ exchange numbers with bakery guy.” 

“Why not?” says Mikha. “I know him since I worked there. He always stare at me. And after we were brave enough for talk to each other, he flirt with me too.” 

Rasi frowns. “Just be careful. Guys these days…”

“I will, don’t worry! And I always have you, right?”

“Yeah, you do. I can’t deny that.” Rasi sighs. 

“You have me too,” says Nadya. “Me and Duncan.”

“Ohhh,” says Rasi. “Speaking of, Duncan, when are you going to ask Nadya out?” 

Nadya drops my arm, and she and I both blush so red I’m sure we look like tomatoes. Or at least I do; she still looks beautiful like always. I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a while, waiting for the perfect time to ask Nadya out, and right now, with our friends staring at us with clasped hands and bated breath, and with her gazing hopefully yet bashfully into my eyes, it seems like the perfect moment. 

“Well, Rasi, how about right now?” I say. My voice wavers, but my resolve doesn’t. “Nadya, will you go out with me? 


	12. First Date

“Wow, this is  _ really  _ tacky,” I say, looking around the restaurant Nadya took me to for our first date. The walls are made of wood and covered with colorful paintings. 

Nadya laughs, a delightful, soft little sound. “It’s just about the cheapest restaurant around, Duncan.” She signals to the host to give us a table for two, and he leads us to a table in the corner. 

Nadya opens her menu and smiles at me. “Now let’s see what we want to eat, shall we?”

I peek inside the menu and frown. The whole thing is in Indonesian.

“Um, Nadya? There’s a problem.” I point to the writing on the menu, and she laughs. 

“Oh.” She blushes slightly. “I guess I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s all right. Here, why don’t you let me pick.”

“But you don’t understand anything the menu says!”

“That’s the point.” I wink at her. “Let’s have a little culinary adventure, shall we?”

From her answering smile, I can tell that she is totally on board. “I like this side of you, Duncan.”

I grin. “I like all sides of you.”

Nadya giggles, and I point at something on her menu. “How about that?” 

“Oh, that’s  _ sago.  _ It’s like a pancake. It’s very good.”

“Sounds good to me. Now how about that?” 

“That’s fried rice. It’s one of the most famous dishes in Jakarta, and one of my favorites!”

“Okay...very good...now how about  _ that? _ ”

Nadya gasps, then bursts into laughter. “That’s a fruit bat! A dish from Manado! Are you sure you want to eat that?  _ I’ve _ never even tried that.”

I flash her another smile. “Bring it on!”

Nadya flags our waiter down. She orders in Indonesian, and the waiter takes our order and strides away. 

While we wait, we talk about the week. It had been a particularly stressful one, from Iwan and Paul allowing an orangutan to crap on my uniform on Wednesday to having another orangutan get bitten by a snake and almost die on Saturday. Amy yelled at me when I forgot to answer a call to accept a new shipment of orangutans, and Iwan had almost gotten into a fistfight with Rasi, only to be stopped by Eric throwing raw eggs at his head. Iwan had threatened to show Amy the raw eggs on his head and tell her exactly what happened, but by then Amy was so busy trying to rescue the dying orangutan that to bother her would have made him look bad. 

So, yeah, Nadya and I were not particularly sad to have the next two days off. We both needed an escape, so we decided to go out on our first date tonight. Mikha has a date tonight, too, with Nate from the bakery. It was all she talked about at work today, and she was even giddier than usual. 

“I’m very happy for Mikha,” says Nadya. “I know she’s wanted to date for a while, and I’m glad that it’s finally happening with somebody she already kind of knows.”

“That’s good for Mikha, then,” I agree. “She and Nate sure seem to have good chemistry.”

“Oh, yes. Mikha told me all about how they used to flirt in the bakery. One time he even took her into the back room and he was going to kiss her, but then the old manager walked in, searching for a rolling pin. They broke apart just in time! But Mikha never did get a kiss from Nate.”

“Well, maybe she will tonight. Hey, I think our food’s here.” I gesture to the waiter, who is heading toward our table with a large serving tray. 

The waiter sets the dishes on the table and Nadya thanks him. Once he is gone, she starts giggling hysterically. 

I can’t help but smile back. “What’s so funny?”

“This is such...a  _ bizarre  _ assortment...of food! I’ve  _ never  _ had this bat dish before, and I usually get the fried rice by itself!”

“Well, I’ve never had  _ any  _ of it before. Guess we’re broadening each other’s horizons tonight. Now let’s dig in, shall we?” 

***********

After dinner, Nadya and I drove back to Rasi’s house to watch a movie. Rasi had gone over to Eric’s to play video games and wouldn’t be back until late. So Nadya and I had put a sappy romantic comedy on Rasi’s flat-screen TV, but I had difficulty paying attention, especially when Nadya took off her hijab and let her beautiful dark hair down. So we just ended up talking instead. 

“You know, Duncan, I had a really great time with you tonight,” Nadya says. 

“I had a great time, too, Nadya. I...I really like you.”

“I like you, too, Duncan.”

I hesitate for a moment, then close the space between us on the couch and put my arm around her. She lays her head on my shoulder, and I feel her relax. 

“This is very new to me,” I whisper.

“Me too,” says Nadya. “My father is very protective of me. I am not sure how he would react to me having this kind of physical contact.”

I immediately take my arm off of her. “I’m sorry, is this too much?” 

“Not at all,” says Nadya. “ It just...may be a while before I am ready to introduce you to my father.”

I put my arm back around her. “Of course, Nadya. Take all the time you need.”

“Thank you, Duncan.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, please,” I start, “but does your dad’s protectiveness have anything to do with your religion?”

“No,” says Nadya. “That’s a common misconception. Islam isn’t this horrible male-dominant, woman-oppressing cult that so many ignorant people make it out to be. I think it is quite a beautiful religion, actually. Most of my childhood friends are Muslim. However, I have never been particularly religious myself.”

“Then why do you wear your hijab?” I ask. 

“I guess I just grew up that way.”

“I see.”  
We sit in silence for a few minutes before Nadya admits, “You know, as soon as I saw you I was drawn to you. I wanted to know more about this strange, handsome guy who had come to ORP, so determined to get a job despite having no experience with orangutans. I love how determined you are, no matter how crazy your ideas are.”

“My ideas are crazy?”

“Sorry, Duncan, yes, your ideas are a little crazy.”  
I laugh. “I suppose that’s fair.”

Nadya slips her hand into mine. Her hand is soft and dainty, and feels strange in my large, calloused hand, yet it feels so right nonetheless. “But that’s what I like about you,” she whispers. 

My heart leaps into my throat. Should I kiss her? The very thought makes my head spin. I’ve never kissed a girl before. Last night, I asked Rasi for tips on how to kiss, but now that the possibility is so real, I can’t remember anything he told me. 

“Nadya, look at me,” I say, my voice quivering a little. She sits up to face me. 

I give her hand a squeeze, and place our linked hands over my heart. She gazes into my eyes—God, her own dark eyes are so mesmerizing, I could get lost in them—and her breath quickens in anticipation. I cup her cheek with my free hand and kiss her forehead, then lean in to kiss her lips. 

Nadya throws her free arm around my waist, leaning into the kiss. We break apart, but I kiss her again. Then again. And again. Her lips are so soft, and they feel like they were made to fit mine and mine alone. I let instinct take over and kiss her deeper this time, laying down onto the couch and pulling her on top of me. Her hands roam my chest as I move my lips to kiss her jaw, traveling all the way down to her neck, and then back up to her lips again. 

When we finally break apart, we gaze into each other’s eyes, a little unable to believe what just happened. 

“Wow,” breathes Nadya. “That was amazing.”

“You’re amazing,” I whisper, then wrap my arms around her waist and kiss her again. When I deepen the kiss this time, my tongue meets hers. Once again I let instinct take over, and I’m shocked at just how strong and how deep my feelings for another human being can be. 

The night passes in a blur. Before I know it it is after midnight, and Nadya and I still haven’t moved off the couch. She smiles at me and brushes that one unruly lock of hair from my face, just like Mom used to. 

“That feels nice,” I say. “My mom used to do the same thing with my hair.”

“And  _ my  _ mom used to kiss my forehead whenever I hurt myself,” replies Nadya. 

Without warning, Nadya starts to get blurry, but somehow I don’t feel shy about being emotional in front of her. 

“I miss her. Uncle Jacob, too. I don’t remember firsthand how my father treated my mother, but I  _ will  _ treat you better than that, I swear. I don’t ever want to lose you.”

“I miss my mother, too.” Nadya’s eyelashes are damp, and I take her hands in mine and kiss her forehead again. “She would have been thrilled to meet you,” Nadya whispers. 

I give her a long, tight squeeze, wishing my mother and Uncle Jacob could still be around to meet this beautiful girl who makes me feel things I never thought I could feel. When I first moved in with Uncle Jacob, I hated people. They had done nothing but cause trouble for me. But now that I’ve been on my own for several months, I’m beginning to discover that there are some really great human beings in this world, and that I actually do have a great capacity to care for people. 

I hear the door unlock, followed by a girl crying. Nadya shoots me a glance, concerned. Seconds later, Rasi appears in the TV room, desperately trying to console a sobbing Mikha, but to no avail. 

“Mikha, what’s wrong?” Nadya jumps off the couch to comfort her friend. 

“Nate stood her up,” Rasi growls. “I swear, if I ever get my hands on that guy…”

“Oh, Mikha! I’m so sorry.” Nadya holds her arms out to Mikha, who cries into Nadya’s shoulder. 

“The nerve of that guy, getting Mikha’s hopes up like that and hurting her,” I say. 

“She’s really messed up over it,” Rasi whispers to me. “She texted me when I was playing video games with Eric. So I went and got her so she could hang with us. And then I brought her here. No way was I going to leave her waiting at that restaurant until her dad could come pick her up.”

“Does he know she’s out now?”  
“Yeah, he’s fine with it. He’s really nice. Said Mikha could hang with her friends and get all the cheering up she needed.” 

“Sounds like a pretty cool guy.” 

“I just can’t believe it,” sobs Mikha. “Why would he stand me up? You see us at bakery. He obviously like me.” 

“Obviously not enough to treat you with a little respect,” says Rasi. 

“But that’s on him, not you,” adds Nadya. 

Mikha chokes out, “What do I do if he tries to talk to me again?”

“Dump him,” says Rasi. “Clearly, he’s no good for you.”

“I don’t know, maybe give him one more chance?” Nadya suggests. “Maybe he just had something come up.”

“No, it’s not that,” says Mikha, wiping away tears. “He text me before Rasi pick me up saying he cancel because he just leaving work and not want risk getting caught to meet former employee.”

“What a bullshit excuse!” I exclaim.

“Well then...yeah. Let him know it wasn’t nice,” says Nadya. “Then see what he says. Maybe you give him another chance, maybe not.”

“But for now,” says Rasi, “let’s take your mind off of him for a bit.” He pulls Mikha into a tight hug and tells her, “You are worth  _ so  _ much more than some stupid guy, all right? And if you’re still mad at Nate in the morning, Eric has a black belt in karate.” 

Mikha laughs. “Thanks, guys. I guess I do feel a little better.” 


	13. Exposed

“We were supposed to go back to our restaurant,” I say to Sukarno of Nadya. “We had a fight when I told her I wanted to be alone in the woods tonight, but work has been really stressful this week, and I just had to come back here to see you.”

“I’m glad you came back, Duncan,” says Sukarno, scarfing down the last of the fish we had grilled earlier this evening. “It’s been a while. I was getting lonely without you.” 

My head snaps up at his confession. ‘Y-you were?”

“Yes.”

I sigh. “I think Nadya is too. She says I’m distant and she doesn’t understand why. Since she and I are getting closer, I have to get better and better at making excuses to come out here to see you, without telling her what I’m really doing.”

Sukarno asks, “What do you tell her?”

“I tell her I want to have the night to myself in the forest. She knows how much I enjoy the woods.”

“I actually wanted to talk to you about that, Duncan.” Sukarno holds out a mango to me. Eagerly, I accept, and start to peel the fruit while waiting for him to go on.

“You’ve been going in and out of the forest a lot to see me, Duncan. And I’ve heard hikers and hunters walking by, noticing your footprints and wondering whose they are. Someone even tracked your footprints right to my shelter. I narrowly escaped being discovered.”

My mouth falls open. “ _ Really? _ I thought you were pretty well-hidden out here.” 

“I like to think so myself,” says Sukarno. “But I’m worried that if you keep coming to see me, you might leave a trail and I’ll be discovered.” 

“I guess I didn’t think about that,” I say. “I guess neither of us did.”

Sukarno sighs, his deep, dark eyes boring into mine. He looks sad. 

“Duncan,” he says. “I really, really hate to say this, but this is the last time we can see each other. I can’t risk getting caught. If anyone caught me, they would have me thrown into the crazy house. Or worse, try to get me to conform to civilization. I-I just cannot have that. I would die of disgust.”

I drop my half-eaten mango. The ripe, sticky fruit leaves a big orange spot on my uniform pants. “But Sukarno, we’re friends! How could you dump me just like that?”

“You’ll always be my friend, Duncan.” Sukarno places a hand to his heart. “I’ll always keep you in here. And I’ll always remember you. Won’t you remember me?”

I frown. “Well, yes, of course, Sukarno. But when you told me you’d taken a liking to me after spending your whole life despising humans, that really made me feel special. I thought I was at least special enough to you that you wouldn’t dump me as a friend the minute you sensed humans were out to get you. Which I doubt they were; there are a lot of people out here who just come to hike or hunt. Or cut down trees for logs.” I grimace, thinking of the orangutans’ indignant squeals whenever they saw loggers come by to chop down their homes. 

“You can never be too careful, Duncan,” says Sukarno. “I have to think of my own survival, you know.”

I glare at him. “It wouldn’t kill you to think of your friends, too.”

“You think this is easy for me, Duncan?” Sukarno snaps, his gravelly voice taking on a dark, animalistic tone that turns my blood to ice in my veins. “You think I want to leave you, leave the home I love? Because if you do you’re dead wrong. Metaphorically, it kills me to do this. But if I were to be discovered, it might literally kill me. If I didn’t kill myself because of the misery of living in civilization, I wouldn’t survive out there long anyway. I just don’t know how.”

“ _ Kill  _ yourself? How can you even think of such a thing? Maybe you  _ do  _ belong in the crazy house,” I spit. 

“That’s quite enough, Duncan. Also, I haven’t spent my whole life hating humans. That’s another thing you’ve got wrong.”

“Wrong, wrong, wrong, I’m always WRONG!” I screech. “You think you know what’s best for me, Sukarno, but you don’t! You think I should come live in the forest with you and leave all my friends and my girlfriend behind! And you think you can just go ahead and leave me behind and I’ll be fine! But I won’t! YOU’RE wrong this time, Sukarno, YOU’RE wrong! And name  _ one  _ instance—not counting me—where you haven’t hated humans. I dare you, name ONE!”

Sukarno shakes his head, maddeningly calm. “It’s not important, Duncan.” 

I shoot him an icy look. “Tell me, Sukarno.”

He stares back at me, his eyes hardening into cold black pits. “Are you  _ really  _ going to make me think of the pain of my past and not respect my wishes? I thought you were better than that, Duncan.”

Sighing, I back down. He looks so sad and scared. I remember what Mikha said the other night after Nate stood her up yet again, saying he needed some space: that she didn’t understand it, but that she just had to respect what he needed. I sure as hell don’t understand why Sukarno would just drop me as a friend like this. I mean, why couldn’t he just build another shelter nearby? Who’s to say that people really would try to reform him if they discovered him? But he’s clearly terrified, so I won’t try to reason with him now. 

“You’re right, Sukarno. I’m sorry for my outburst. But I really don’t understand why you can’t just, say, build another shelter somewhere else in the forest.”

“Even if I did, people would likely track your footprints to that shelter, too. Duncan, please, do this for me. Don’t come back after tonight. I’ll be sad to see you go, but I’d rather keep the one friend I have in my heart than risk being discovered and forced to be part of society.”

His face is becoming blurrier and blurrier, just like Mom’s did when she left me at Uncle Jacob’s, but I nod. “All right, Sukarno. Let’s just enjoy our last night together.”

Sukarno chuckles. I sure am going to miss that chuckle. “Thank you, Duncan.” 

*********

The light in my face wakes me up the next morning. I yawn and stretch before looking around, disoriented. 

“What the–“ I realize I’m still in Sukarno’s shelter. I must have fallen asleep here. But Sukarno isn’t here.

“Sukarno?” No response.  _ Obviously.  _ I don’t know where he is. Nor do I really care at this moment. Is he gone forever? I can’t believe he would just leave me like this. And not even a proper goodbye.

I check my phone. Ten-thirty.  _ Shit.  _ SHIT! I’m late for work. I must have worried the crap out of Rasi too. I check my phone again, and see that I have a barrage of texts from Nadya, Rasi, Eric, and Mikha, all asking me if I’m all right. I quickly reply to all four of them that I am all right, that I just went on an adventure in the woods and fell asleep, and that I’d be at work shortly. A minute later, Mikha replies that I better hurry up because Amy has some important things to talk about.

Ugh. That can never be good news. Plus I’m still reeling from Sukarno’s rejection. Amy’s problems are the last thing I want to deal with right now. 

I bolt through the forest and don’t stop until I reach the gate. The orangutans are hanging out in various places, but nobody is outside taking care of the orangutans. Strange. I guess it’s a good thing though. It’s also a good thing that the gate is now open. If anyone saw me climbing over it...

It’s just after eleven when I step into Amy’s office. And she isn’t there alone. All the other staff are there, too. I go to stand by Nadya and give her hand a squeeze. 

“Duncan! I was so worried.” She holds my hand tight and doesn’t let go.

“I’m sorry, Nadya. I fell asleep in the woods.” 

“You should have called me! I would have driven you back to Rasi’s.”

Amy clears her throat. “Duncan, you’re late.”

“I’m sorry, Amy. It won't happen again.”

“It better not,” she grumbles. “I have gathered you all in my office again today because we lost another employee yesterday. Rasi, do you want to share with everyone what you observed?” 

Rasi steps forward. “Iwan and Adam—the blond from Melbourne—were taking care of Putra and Dominic, respectively, and Iwan tried to get Putra to attack Dominic.”

“So what? Orangutans fight.” Iwan snaps.

“Shut up, Iwan!” hisses Eric. Iwan glares at Eric, who scrambles to hide behind Mikha. 

“Anyway,” continues Rasi, “eventually Putra  _ did _ attack Dominic, and Adam didn’t get out of the way fast enough. He got caught between the two fighting orangutans, and I had to wrestle him out without getting him or myself injured. As it was, Adam had a broken finger, a dislocated shoulder, and a lot of bruises and scratches. He quit after that. And I can’t say I blame him. At all.” Rasi glares at Iwan and Amy.

Amy doesn’t seem to pick up on Rasi’s jab at her. “Thank you, Rasi. Iwan? Do you have anything to say?”

“My love, what Rasi say not true.” Iwan smiles at Amy, and it’s the fakest smile I’ve ever seen on anyone. “You not see? When you give Rasi  _ promosi _ , it not what he want. He want  _ my  _ position. So now he make up story to get me to lose job. I never tell Putra to attack Dominic. So maybe you fire Rasi instead.”

“I’ll be right back,” hisses Mikha to me and Nadya. She slips out of the office before I can ask her where she’s going.

Rasi shoots Iwan an icy glare that looks very strange on his friendly face. “How  _ dare  _ you—“

“Now Rasi, let’s not get all worked up,” says Amy. Her patronizing voice makes me want to slap her. Then she turns to Iwan and says, “My dear, are you sure that’s really the best idea? Rasi is one of the most valuable employees to my business. He sure can convince a lot of people to send their orangutans to us with  _ that  _ charming personality.” 

Iwan scowls; he and everyone else knows Amy’s right. Rasi smirks at Iwan. 

“Then we fire Duncan,” says Iwan. “He not have use.”

“Yes, fire Duncan!” shouts Paul. 

“FIRE DUNCAN!” chorus three more employees whose names I don’t know. 

“Are you crazy?” demands Carrie. “Duncan has been nothing but helpful to Amy.”

“Carrie’s right!” Eric pipes up. “Iwan is very  _ jialat.  _ He gives everyone a hard time!”

At that moment, Mikha comes back with the surveillance camera and a laptop in her hands. She marches up to Amy and says, “Watch this. I think you not aware of all trouble Iwan create. Some of the situation he gets himself and the other employees into with orangutans are downright  _ dangerous. _ ”

Amy gasps. “Mikha! You took that off the roof?”

Mikha ignores her. “You need to see this.”

Mikha hooks the camera up to her laptop and starts playing the footage, which shows many different things: Nadya and Mikha on lunch break; Patrick playing with the baby orangutans; me in Amy’s office filing papers; Iwan and Paul getting into a fistfight over what looks like money; Rasi and Eric tending to an orangutan with an abscess in her cheek.

“I’m going further back,” says Mikha. “I want to show you the time Iwan killed that poor baby orangutan.”

Mikha presses a bunch of keys on the laptop, and more images flurry across the screen.

“Wait, stop,” says Patrick. “What’s that?”

He points to the image of the gate, and there is a dark blur shimmying up the gate. I squint to get a better look, and realize it’s me jumping over the gate to see Sukarno. 

“That’s...DUNCAN?!” Mikha gasps, her hands flying to her mouth. She quickly shuts off the camera and slams her laptop shut. 

“Duncan, what are you doing jumping over the gate?!” demands Nadya. She wants answers, and at this point I’m willing to give them to her. She deserves to know the truth. 

I sigh. I really don’t want to tell Nadya why I was jumping over the gate with everyone watching me, but since Sukarno is gone forever now, I might as well just spit out the truth. If he’s really run away, he won’t be discovered even if I reveal the truth about him now. 

“You see, my night excursions—well, I was going to see a friend in the forest. He lives in the woods; he has his whole life. I met him on my first day at work, when we were all in the forest and I went to go hunt down that bird. Turns out the bird calls were actually coming from Sukarno. He was hunting. We developed this friendship. He was like a father to me. He hated humans with every fiber of his being. He didn’t want to be discovered and forced to become part of society. So I tried to keep him a secret.” 

Nadya’s eyes well up with tears. “Duncan…”

“This is ridiculous!” blurts Amy. “Duncan, you come here with no experience taking care of orangutans, and now you cause all this upset with your ridiculous shenanigans! I’m sorry to say it, but I think it is best if I let you go.”

“I think so, too,” says Iwan. He snarls at me. 

“No!” pleads Mikha. “Amy, we’re so short on staff already. Keep Duncan. You never know when you may need him. If we lose any more staff, it might do us good to try training him to work with the orangutans again. And even if we don’t, it will be a whole lot easier for you to give us orders—I mean,  _ instructions _ —if you don’t have to worry about filing papers! Please, Amy, we need all the staff we can get!”

“I agree with Mikha,” says Rasi. “Either way, he’ll be a great help. He already has been. He’s done all your paperwork, taken all your phone calls. We have been able to get so much more done lately because you don’t have to busy yourself with those things and have more time to spend helping us with the orangutans. You know what you’re doing far better than any of us do, after all.”

Damn. Rasi sure is smooth when he wants to be. And are he and Mikha really standing by me, even after I lied to them and everyone else? To Nadya? 

Amy sighs. “Fine. Duncan can stay. But I’m not happy about this, you hear? From now on, no more jumping over the gate, or I will report it to the police.”

“Yes, Amy,” I say. I have no reason to jump over the gate anymore anyway. 

Everyone files out of the office. Iwan shoves me on his way out. Mikha, Nadya, Rasi, and Eric stay behind. 

“You guys,” I say, “I’m so sorry I kept my friend a secret.”

“We’re not mad, Duncan,” says Mikha, taking my arm. “At least I’m not.”

“I’m not, either,” says Rasi. “It’s just a lot to wrap my head around. A guy living in the forest? Is he okay out there?” 

“I think that’s the only way he’d be okay living.” I smile wistfully.

“Some people still live in the woods,” says Eric. “It’s not that big a deal.” 

I look at Nadya. She’s not looking at me. She is standing with her back to me and her arms crossed. 

“Let’s let them have a moment alone,” says Mikha, urging Rasi and Eric out of the office. 

Once they are gone, I reach for Nadya’s hand. “Nadya—”

“Don’t touch me!” she snaps, yanking her hand away. “I can’t believe  _ this  _ is what you blew me off for, Duncan! All those times you said you couldn’t go on dates, all those times you said you were taking a late-night walk in the woods, you were spending time with some crazed lunatic who is too scared of people to even go out in public?”

“Nadya, please, you don’t understand—”

“I’m not going to pretend like I do! In fact I don’t want to! The worst part of all of this, Duncan, is that you lied to me. Every time you said you couldn’t go on a date, I feared that you were beginning to lose interest in me. I’ve been an anxious wreck for weeks!” 

“Nadya, you know that’s not true! I love you!”

“How can I know that when you blow me off and then lie about it? I need to feel more secure in my relationship than that, Duncan!” 

“Nadya, I promise you, from now on—”

“No. There is no from now on, because I’m done. I can’t be in a relationship with someone who makes me feel so insecure. Especially if he lies to me. Now that I know the truth, being with you just doesn’t seem right anymore. I’m sorry, Duncan.”

Her face is red and streaked with tears. It hurts her to do this. I can tell. But not as much as it hurts me. And it doesn’t stop her from running out of the office, leaving me all alone. 


	14. Oblivion and Transformation

Confused, dazed, and alone, I bolt out of the office, Nadya’s words still swirling around in the jumbled mess that is my head.  _ Don’t touch me! There is no from now on, because I’m done. I can’t be in a relationship with someone who makes me feel so insecure. Now that I know the truth, being with you just doesn’t feel right anymore.  _

_ Doesn’t feel right _ ??!! How could what we have—had—possibly not feel right? My arm around Nadya. Her soft, tiny hand in my rough, oversized one. How feather-light her weight was on my stomach as we lay in her bed, hoping to get in a few good kisses before Mikha started badgering us with texts, demanding what the hell was up. That sleepy, blissfully content look in her beautiful dark eyes that she would get whenever we were kissing, as though completely mesmerized by merely the sight of me. And oh, the way she would hold me when we were around our friends, her arms slipping around my waist as I pressed my cheek against her temple, and how she laid her head against my shoulder in response, so happy to show the world how much she loved me…

So mesmerized by the sight of me. She said she hadn’t felt this happy in a long time. So happy to have me. So happy to let the world know she loved me. 

Why did she leave me? If I made her so happy, why did she do it? I know I lied to her, and that hurt her. But that didn’t mean she had to hurt me. 

She hurt me. She broke my heart. And it hurt her to hurt me. 

If it hurt her so much to hurt me, THEN WHY THE FUCK DID SHE DO IT????!!!!

I can’t possibly go back to work. Can’t possibly see her face again. It would kill me. I still love her, I still want her, I’ve never been so happy in my life…

No. I  _ had  _ never been so happy in my life. Because what we had is gone, and now all that’s left in me is a gaping, throbbing hole in what’s left of my heart. And what hurts even more is that deep down, I understand why she hurt me, understand why she left me, and I’m beginning to realize I deserve it. 

I dart past Rasi’s house, not wanting to go back home now, and don’t stop running until I reach the center of the city. My legs carry me all the way to the one bar I know, the one that I went to with Rasi to celebrate his birthday last month, and without even thinking about it, I go inside, not intending to come out until I no longer remember what happened on this god-forsaken day. 

************

I feel myself slowly drift back from some unknown abyss of unconsciousness, pondering what could possibly put me into such a deep sleep in the first place. I do know one thing, though: I feel absolutely  _ awful.  _ My head is spinning, my stomach is churning, my whole body is shaking, and I feel something like a needle sticking into my arm. My eyes still shut, I reach for whatever it is, and try to pull it out of my arm. 

“Careful, honey, you don’t want to rip out your IV,” a gentle female voice says from above me. I open my eyes to see a middle-aged nurse standing at the head of the large white hospital bed I now realize I’m in. 

“What happened?” I demand. “Why am I in the hospital?”

“You had severe alcohol poisoning, honey,” the nurse says, pressing a cool hand to my forehead. “We pumped everything out of your stomach. You’ll be okay, but you might not feel so great today.”

I blink. “Alcohol poisoning?”

“Yes,” says the nurse. “Your friend brought you here last night. He’s been waiting outside your door ever since I told him visitors aren’t allowed until ten in the morning. But it’s just after ten now. Do you want me to bring him in?”

“Yes, please,” I reply, closing my eyes again. The light hurts them. I really don’t want visitors right now, but Rasi must have brought me here, and he must be really worried about me, so I’ll let him see me if he’s been waiting outside my door all this time. 

I hear the door open, and then footsteps approach my bed. “Hey, Rasi.”

I hear a gravelly chuckle. “Look who’s awake.”

I sit bolt upright in bed, barely even noticing how dizzy the sudden motion makes me. “ _ Sukarno?” _

“Yep, it’s me.” 

I gape at the man in front of me, barely recognizing him. He still has his beard, but he smells like soap now, and he is wearing khaki shorts, a white T-shirt, and socks and shoes. 

“I don’t understand,” I say. “How did you find me? When I woke up in your shelter, you were gone.I thought you had already run away.”

“I had,” explains Sukarno. “But I had forgotten some of my hunting tools in the old shelter. I went back to get them, and just as I was about to leave, you stumbled into my shelter, threw up everywhere, and passed out. You said a few words, but I could barely understand you. I heard  _ Nadya left me _ , but that was about it.”

I grimace. “Don’t remind me.” 

Sukarno chuckles. I wish he wouldn’t laugh at this. But more than anything I’m happy to have him back. “Why did you bring me here?” I ask.

“I could tell you were sick, and as far as I know, you had been out in society all day. I figured something in society had gotten you sick and caused the problem, so only society could fix the problem. So I revealed myself to the public and brought you to the sick house, and told them to take care of you while I got myself registered as a citizen. The people at the hospital wouldn’t believe me unless I did. Stupid humans. But I knew I had to do it for you, Duncan.” 

“Sukarno, I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe you’d do that for me. Thank you.”

Sukarno pulls me into a hug. “I’m glad I was there for you last night.”

I bury my face into his now-clean shoulder. “I’m glad I thought to come to your shelter, even when I was drunk out of my mind.”

“As am I.”

“I have this, too,” says Sukarno, breaking our hug and taking out my phone. “Why don’t you page your friends and let them know what happened?” 

Now  _ I  _ chuckle. “You don’t  _ page  _ your friends on a cell phone, Sukarno; you  _ call  _ them. You must have heard someone page a nurse to come into my room or something.” 

“Now, now, that’s beside the point,” says Sukarno, grinning at me. 

I call Rasi first. He answers on the first ring. 

“Duncan! Where are you? Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay, Rasi,” I reassure him. “Listen, I went to the bar last night and ended up having to go to the hospital. I had really bad alcohol poisoning.”

“Oh, my God, Duncan! Thank God you’re alive! I’m coming to the hospital, and I’m bringing Mikha and Eric. They’ve been worried sick ever since you didn’t come home last night, as have I.”

“I’m sorry, Rasi.”  
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” says Rasi. “We’ll be there soon.” 

************

“Duncan! I was so worried!” Mikha bursts into the room and throws her arms around me, careful not to jostle my IV. 

“Oh, Mikha, I’m so happy to see you.” I hug her back tightly. 

“Don’t do something like this again,” she scolds. “I know it suck to get dump, but you could have died.”

I frown. “Nadya.”

“I know,” says Mikha. “I talked to her, and she feels absolutely horrible about breaking up with you.”  
“She does?”  
“Yes, but she isn’t ready to see you. I know her; she just take little longer to process thing. Maybe you give her few days?”

I nod. “I can do that. I’m just relieved she doesn’t hate me.”

“And I’m just relieved you’re alive. What would we do without you?” 

“Yeah,” says Rasi. “You had us  _ really  _ scared, Duncan.” 

“Even more scared than the time Rasi watched that terrible horror movie!” exclaims Eric. 

Rasi glares at him. “This is serious, Eric.”

Eric nods. “Right.” he places a hand on my shoulder. “I’m just as relieved to see you okay, Duncan. Even if I don’t show it.”

“You do. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, all of you.” 

“So you must be Duncan’s friends,” Sukarno cuts in. 

Mikha gives him a warm smile. “Oh, hi! I’m Mikha. And these are our friends Rasi and Eric. And you are?”

“Sukarno. I’m Duncan’s friend from the forest. He came to me when he was sick last night, so I brought him to the hospital.”

“He sure did,” I say. “He even revealed himself to the public to save me, despite his fears that he would have to conform to society.”

“You’re the forest friend?” Rasi asks. 

Sukarno laughs. “I guess that would be me. What did Duncan tell you about me?”

Mikha, Rasi, Eric, and I fill him in on the surveillance camera affair and how Nadya broke up with me. Sukarno fills them in on his bringing me to the hospital and getting registered as a citizen. 

“Wow,” says Mikha. “You’re a really good friend to Duncan.”

“You probably saved his life,” adds Rasi. 

“It’s the least I can do for him,” says Sukarno. “He’s the best person I know.” 

**********

An hour later, Mikha, Rasi, and Eric have gone to work, but Sukarno is still by my side. I’ve finally gotten a meal in me—hospital food is no banquet, but I do feel a lot better now—and have chugged and chugged water until I’m running to the bathroom every half hour. After my fourth trip to the bathroom, I climb back into bed and smile at Sukarno. 

“How did you like meeting my friends?” I ask. 

Sukarno hesitates for a moment, then finally says, “You’re not going to believe this, Duncan, but...I liked them. I liked them a lot. They really do care about you. They did a lot for you to allow you to keep your job, and they were so worried about you just simply because you’re their friend. I didn’t even know civilized humans could feel that way.”

I laugh. “Believe it or not, Sukarno, some of us can.”

“I’m beginning to see I was wrong.”

“Wait,” I say, “where will you go now that you’re a registered citizen?”

“Good question,” says Sukarno. “I don’t know. I was going to just go back to my shelter, but after seeing you and your friends, I’m beginning to think that living among a few other people wouldn’t be quite so bad after all.”

“Maybe you can live with me and Rasi,” I suggest. “But I need to ask him first.”

“Of course. Take your time.”

I sigh. “I just miss Nadya so much.” 

“I know how you feel.”

My eyes widen. “You do?”

“A long time ago,” says Sukarno, “before my brother caused me to despise all humans, I loved a girl once, too. But she never noticed me. Her family eventually moved not long before my parents died. I never got to speak to her, and that shall be my greatest regret.”

Biting my lip at Sukarno’s idea of love, I say, “We all have regrets, Sukarno. I regret not just telling my friends about you. Now I’ve lost Nadya. All because of my stupid lies.”  
“Why didn’t you tell them about me?” 

“Because I didn’t want you to be discovered. I knew you didn’t want that. I was trying to keep your secret.”

“Oh, Duncan, if I’d only known keeping the secret would cause you so much trouble…”

“I guess I didn’t really think it would. Or just didn’t think to say anything to you.” 

“I wish you had. I’m sorry, Duncan. I was selfish.”  
“I’m sorry, too; I should have told you keeping your secret would cause problems for me.” Now I understand why, seven years ago at Mom’s grave, Uncle Jacob had told me communication was important if I didn’t want to end up with regrets. What a mess I could have saved myself from! 

“Let’s just put this behind us, shall we?” Sukarno gives me his biggest smile yet. 

“Sounds good to me,” I say. He claps me on the back. 


	15. A Bloody Awakening

On my way to the office, I stop to play with the baby orangutans. I’m not supposed to handle them, but I often come here on my breaks when no one is looking. I’ve made a few baby orangutan friends over the past few months; Bunga, the baby girl who was taken from her parents when she was two months old, runs up to me and immediately grabs my leg; Harry, the rambunctious male who is already becoming a ladies’ man, screeches at me repeatedly, begging for attention; Ellie, the female who loves to play in the mud, proudly presents me with a handmade mud pie by smearing it all over my uniform shirt. 

“Thanks, Ellie,” I laugh, and brush the mud off my shirt. I really don’t mind it, but I’m sure Amy would. 

Bunga whimpers. She lets go of my leg and starts to walk away, looking back at me with sad eyes when I don’t follow her. 

“What’s wrong?” I ask. She whimpers again. I follow her, and she takes me a little ways into the forest, stopping when she reaches a pile of red fur on the ground. I realize what the problem is: her playmate, Indah, is injured. 

I examine Indah from a distance, not wanting to touch her until I know it’s safe to do so; I notice that her right big toe is swelling up. Is it broken? I can’t take care of this myself. I have to find Mikha. 

I turn to head to the platform, but Bunga starts to cry. 

“I’ll be back,” I promise her. “I can’t take care of Indah myself, so I’m going to get someone who can. In the meantime, can you keep your friend company?” I lead Bunga back to her injured playmate, and she seems to get the message and stands guard over her friend. 

Ten minutes later, I still haven’t found Mikha. I guess I’m just going to have to do this myself. I head back to the babies, and am surprised yet relieved to cross paths with Rasi.

“Duncan! What’s up?”

“Hey, Rasi,” I reply. “I found Indah lying on the ground. I think she has a broken toe.”

Rasi frowns. “Where is she? I’ll take her with me and get the on-call vet.”

I take him to her. He examines her swollen toe and says, “Yep, it’s broken all right. The vet will have to take a look at this. Come on, girl, I’m going to get you better.” He gently picks Indah up, careful not to touch her broken toe, and she immediately relaxes at his soothing tone and careful handling. Bunga, however, begins screeching at him. 

I pull the banana I forgot to eat this morning out of my pocket and hand it to her. “Indah will be back, okay? We are just going to take care of her for a little bit.” Bunga hugs my leg again, and I hug my furry friend back. 

When we reach the office, Rasi says, “Why don’t you go inside and wash up? I’ll take Indah with me and call the vet.” 

I nod and head inside. On my way to the bathroom, I notice that Amy’s office is full. Everyone is inside, standing in a large circle with a flustered Amy in the middle. This can’t be good. 

I head into the office and search for Mikha. I spot her talking to Nadya. I hesitate, but go to stand by her anyway. 

“What’s going on?” I whisper. 

“Amy’s yelling at all of us,” Mikha answers. “There is new shipment of orangutans that come next week, and we not have enough staff because Iwan has scared so many people away. That’s what I tell Amy. But half the staff are blaming you and want you gone. You should get out of here while you still can.”

I hasten to leave, but yelp when someone grabs my collar. Then Iwan is in my face. “You not going anywhere,” he growls. 

“Fire paper boy!” several employees whose names I don’t know chorus. 

“All he do is cause trouble!” adds Paul. 

“Shut up, all of you!” Mikha snaps. “Are you really too  _ stupid  _ to see that Iwan is the reason we don’t have enough staff, not Duncan?”

“Duncan doesn’t know what he’s doing!” a girl I don’t know yells. “Paul told me Duncan’s incompetence is causing a rift in Amy and Iwan’s relationship. And when he’s not causing trouble for them, he’s sleeping around with Nadya and Mikha!” 

“And you believed that?!” Mikha demands. Nadya hides her face in her hands in shame. 

“EVERYONE,  _ QUIET!!!”  _ screams Amy at the top of her lungs. “What is  _ wrong  _ with all of you, spreading childish rumors like that? And if they are true, Duncan, you’ll be reprimanded for inappropriate work conduct.”

“Really now?” demands Eric. “Amy, do you have  _ any _ idea how many girls your fiancé gropes when he thinks you’re not looking?” 

Several girls on Iwan’s side open their mouths to speak, but immediately shrink back when Iwan curls his lip at all of them in quick succession. 

Amy, of course, doesn’t notice this. “Enough, Eric,” she says. Her tone is condescending, like a mother speaking to her misbehaving toddler. 

“Everything Duncan’s fault,” says Iwan. “If you not hire him, Amy, we have enough money to pay for worker who actually know what he doing. But we waste paycheck on Duncan, so ORP fail.” 

“That’s ridiculous!” blurts Mikha. 

“You know, Iwan, I often thought the same myself,” agrees Amy. “But no one else came to work for us. I couldn’t say no to Duncan, even if he is virtually useless. He does save me the trouble of filing all my paperwork.” 

“How dare you talk about Duncan that way! Especially right in front of him!” shouts Mikha. “Iwan’s the one who causes all these employees to leave! Every single one of the employees that have left have all left because of Iwan. You’ve heard all the reports against him.”

“And how do I know those reports are true?” Amy snaps. “How can I accuse my fiancé, when I spend every moment I’m not at work alone with him and know him much too well to think he would ever do any of those horrible things you accuse him of?”

“Wow, that’s, like, not healthy,” mutters Eric under his breath. 

“He manipulates you,” says Mikha. “He’s crazy, and you’re too blind to see that. You know what, Amy, I pity you.” 

Amy bristles, but just as quickly regains her composure and says, “Is that any way to talk to your boss, Mikha?”

“You know what, maybe I overstep,” says Mikha. She glares at Amy and spits, “But now, you know how it feel. You keeps Iwan around, even though he clearly make everyone uncomfortable. That’s overstepping boundaries of all employee. That’s why they all leave. Are you blind, or do you just not care?”

“Iwan’s my everything. He’s the only man who’s ever loved me,” says Amy. 

Eric shudders. “Gross.” 

“Iwan’s the only reason why you’re losing employees,” counters Mikha. 

“Mikha, considering you’ve only been here for a year and have a knack for stirring up drama, I see no reason why I should listen to you.” Amy crosses her arms over her chest. 

“You know what he called you?” I blurt out. “One time, he accused me of trying to get him fired. He destroyed my last photo of my mom and uncle, all but assaulting me in the process. And when I told Nadya and Mikha, he said that once they told you what he did, you’d fire him and leave him with nothing. You think that’s  _ love?  _ Love is built on trust, Amy. And Iwan clearly does not trust you.” 

Amy narrows her eyes at me. “Duncan—”

“Oh, no, I’m not finished,” I say. “Then he called you a bitch and said you had no appreciation for everything he did for you, working with dirty animals that should just be left to die anyway.”

“Nonsense,” scoffs Amy. “Iwan knows how much I love and care about orangutans.”

“Do you, though?” mutters Eric. 

“No, it’s true,” confirms Carrie. “Patrick and I were there, too.”

Patrick nods. “Duncan is telling the truth.” 

For the first time, Amy’s face falls. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her show any sort of emotion. Even when she gets angry, it seems almost mechanical. Robotic. Almost like she gets angry because she  _ should.  _ Like it’s her role to get angry as the boss, the person with the most power. 

“Iwan would...never speak so lowly of something I am so passionate about,” says Amy, but even she sounds unconfident now. 

“Wake UP, Amy!” I yell. “The prick doesn’t give a damn about you or your passions or your employees, and you continue to let him abuse you and all of us. All you’re doing is dragging your business down with you because you refuse to cut your abuser off. He’s abusing all of us, too, yet you turn a blind eye to all of it and boss us around to feel better about yourself!”

Iwan jumps between me and Amy. “DON’T YOU DARE LAY A HAND ON HER!” he screams in my face, spraying spit all over it. He is so tall that there is no way Amy can see that I wasn’t actually about to hit her at all. 

“Duncan, you’re fired! And I will report your attempted assault to the police!” shouts Amy. 

“He didn’t even try to hit you!” Mikha cries. “Iwan just made that up, because we exposed his true character, and you were starting to believe us, so he had to find some way to make himself the hero in your eyes again.”

“Mikha’s right,” says Eric. “I—we— saw everything better than you could have. Do you really want to be married to someone who stages accidents just so you can’t see what a terrible person he is?”

“You need to listen to us, Amy,” says Patrick. Not just for the business, but for your own good. Iwan is the liar here. Not Duncan.”

“I find it funny, Patrick,” says Amy, “that you are going back on what you said to me months ago. I thought you and your girlfriend wanted Duncan gone.”

“First off, she has a name,” snaps Patrick. “Second, um…” Patrick glances at me and falters.

“We did at first,” admits Carrie. “We thought he wouldn’t do the company any good. But after hearing all about him from Mikha and Rasi, about how good of a friend he was and how hardworking he was even though you gave him the short end of the stick, we hoped he would be a good example to you of what a good employee  _ should _ be like. We hoped you’d see that, since he was working in your office with you, and you’d finally fire Iwan.” 

“Duncan is still fired,” says Amy. 

“If he goes, we go too,” says Carrie. 

Patrick nods. “Enough is enough.” 

I steal a glance at Nadya, whose head is bowed, as if in prayer. I will her to look at me, to stand up for me, but she just stands there. 

Apparently I’m not the only one looking for backup, as Iwan shoves his way past me to Paul. He hisses in his crony’s ear, “Say something, idiot!” 

Paul says nothing. He strides over to Amy’s desk, fishes around for his employee contract, tears it to shreds, crumples the pieces into a ball, tosses it onto Amy’s desk, and walks out the door, letting it slam behind him. 

“FUCKING TRAITOR!” explodes Iwan, making the walls rattle and everyone jump. 

Not a second later, the door opens again. It’s Rasi, carrying Indah in his arms, an Indonesian man with a long white shirt and a stethoscope behind him. Clearly confused by the scene he just walked into, Rasi blinks and says, “Indah needs a splint. We are out of bandages.”   
“Give me that,” snarls Iwan, lunging for the baby orangutan. Rasi turns away from him, holding Indah to his chest, protecting her. This only infuriates Iwan further. 

“You never care for baby,” spits Iwan. “You not know what you doing.” 

“That’s a lie, Iwan, and you know it,” says Rasi. “Now stop fooling yourself, because judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, you’re not fooling anyone else.” 

Iwan yells and rips baby Indah out of Rasi’s arms. She screeches and thrashes. Iwan shakes her and screams at her to shut up, and she bites him in the neck. 

Iwan howls in pain and almost drops Indah on her head, but Rasi catches her at the last moment and desperately tries to soothe her. He and the vet leave. Meanwhile Iwan is writing and screaming on the ground. He turns over, revealing the torrents of dark red blood spurting out of his neck, spraying the ground, and even Amy’s desk. 

Amy screams. The sound of her scream—a mixture of terror and despair and hysteria—curdles my blood, while Iwan is rapidly losing more and more of his. 

“ _ Alamak!”  _ exclaims Eric. 

“He must have been bitten in the jugular!” The girl who claimed I was sleeping with Nadya and Mikha cries. She takes out her phone to call an ambulance, even though we all know it’s already too late. 

I feel my stomach turn and my head start to spin. I dash out of the office, barely making it outside before I throw up against a tree.  _ I have to get out of here and never come back,  _ I think. As soon as I catch my breath, I resume running farther and farther into the forest, the trees becoming a green blur, which becomes darker and darker around the edges, closing in on my vision until my head finally hits the forest floor and I’m temporarily relieved of the horrific, sanguineous images I know I will never, ever be able to rid my mind of as long as I live. 


	16. Second Chances—Part 1

“Duncan. It’s time to get up.” Rasi shakes me awake. “We have to go back to ORP today.”

“No,” I groan, pulling the blankets over my head, hoping Mom will pull them off and make everything okay again. Which is a ridiculous prospect. Mom has been dead for seven years. This is Rasi.

“All right, five more minutes,” laughs Rasi. “I’ll go make you an extra strong cup of black coffee.” 

“No, I mean I don’t want to go,” I say. “I don’t ever want to go back there again.”

I hear Rasi’s footsteps approach the side of the bed again. “What’s wrong?”

“I saw a man die, Rasi. I saw Iwan die a bloody, violent death. I will never be able to set foot in that place again without those images coming back to me.” 

“Ah.” I feel Rasi place a hand on my shoulder. “I understand. I wasn’t there when that happened. But you must be traumatized. Mikha told me about it too, and how horrified and disgusted she was, and how she didn’t think she’d ever be the same. Seeing someone die does that to you, I guess. And poor Eric; he’s just a kid...he shouldn’t have to see that…” 

“No one should,” I say. “I grew up poor and saw lots of things no one should ever see. But of all of the things, Iwan bleeding out in the office is the one I don’t think I will ever forget.” 

“Well, you don’t have to go back if you don’t want to,” says Rasi. “But Mikha wants me to go. She says she thinks she might know how to save ORP. I know she’d like it very much if you came, too. And if you need to talk to her about, er, anything, she went through the exact same thing you did. So you’re not alone.”

I pull the covers off my head and sit up. “Thanks, Rasi. And I’ll come. To support Mikha. But I think you better prepare that extra-strong coffee.” I manage a small grin, my first real smile since that grisly day. 

Rasi grins right back. “On it.” He turns and heads out of the room. 

*************

“Are these all the employees we have left?” Mikha gazes around the office at me, Rasi, Nadya, Eric, Carrie, and Patrick in shock. She turns to the older Indonesian man beside her. “Everyone else is gone. I not ever think so many people would support Amy.” 

“You never really know what a person is like until you spend enough time with them. And who knows; maybe they aren’t supporting her; maybe they just left because being here after what happened was too much for them,” says the man. He has the same dark eyes as Mikha, but hers sparkle with excitement, while his gleam with wisdom. 

“Everyone, this is my father, Rinaldi,” says Mikha. “He was ever orangutan rescuer. He maybe helping ORP survive.” 

Rinaldi says, “I am very happy to meet all of you. Why don’t you introduce yourselves?”

One by one, Rinaldi approaches all of us, and we introduce ourselves. When it is my turn, Rinaldi holds out his hand to me, then clasps mine when I hold it out to shake. He then touches his hand to his chest after he lets go. 

“Duncan! Mikha has told me so much about you. You were the newcomer?” Rinaldi asks. 

“Yes, sir,” I reply. 

“ _ Rinaldi,  _ not  _ sir. _ ” Rinaldi gives me a warm smile. Now I see where Mikha gets her unfailing kindness from. 

After we have all introduced ourselves to Rinaldi, he says, “Now, I must have a look at the place. Won’t you show me around?” 

“Of course!” Mikha grabs her father by the arm and pulls him out of the office. The rest of us follow suit. 

We head towards the platform with all the orangutans. There are hardly any scraps of food left on the platform, since ORP closed for three days after the phone calls went out announcing that Iwan had died from his injuries and many other employees, including Amy, had quit. When the call went out, Rasi and I were in the middle of a video-games-and-Ramen party. Rasi picked up the phone, and I still vividly remember how his eyes went wide and he dropped his chopsticks, spilling hot noodles all over his pants. When he hung up the phone, he said, “Iwan’s dead. Amy and a bunch of people are gone.” 

I remember gaping at him, unsure of what to think. Part of me was happy about Iwan’s death. I was certainly happy to have Amy gone. But I was worried for ORP and the orangutans. Would the business survive? Who would take care of all the orangutans? We went into work today not even knowing who—or how many people—would show up. Plus as much of a jerk as Iwan was, and as obvious as it was that he could never survive that bite to the jugular, he was still a person I knew, and it was still a shock to hear he had died. 

“Duncan, watch your step!” Eric’s voice jerks me out of my thoughts, and I jump over the tree root just in time, narrowly avoiding sprawling straight into the platform. 

“Thanks, Eric,” I say. Baby Bintang, the one who scratched me after Iwan gave him that horrible shot, reaches towards me. I hold a hand out to him, and he grabs my finger and squeals happily. 

“I think he’s laughing at you,” jokes Carrie. Patrick chuckles and squeezes her hand. 

Things have changed with Patrick and Carrie, too. They want to be friends with me now. I’m not sure why, since I know they only supported me because they thought I set an example of a good employee and could convince Amy to fire Iwan. But maybe after hearing enough about me from Mikha and Rasi, they believed them when they said I was a good friend, too. 

Rinaldi says, “The orangutans have very calm demeanors. Except for those two fighting males. What are their names?” 

“Rasi and Eric,” I quip, pointing at my two friends, who are having a wrestle fight over who knows what. 

Mikha swats me. “Putra and Dominic. Always fighting for dominance. But Putra still orangutan king in this forest.” 

“But wait,” says Nadya. She still hasn’t said a word to me since we broke up. “The new shipment of orangutans is still coming next week. Once they arrive, we will have fifty orangutans and only eight staff. Are you sure we can manage?”

Mikha’s face falls. “I not think of that.” 

I get an idea, and before I can stop myself, I say, “I know a guy. He’s good with animals. He sure likes them a lot more than he likes people. He spends a lot of time in the forest. But I’ll have to ask him first.” I look at Mikha and Rasi, and they give me knowing smiles. 

“Well,” says Rinaldi, “you sure are a determined group of young people. It will be tough, but I think we can do it. I’ll help you save ORP.” 

“Oh, thank you, Daddy!” Mikha throws her arms around her father’s neck, and he embraces her tenderly. 

“Looks like the orangutans—and the business—will be okay after all.” Rasi claps me and Eric on our shoulders. 

“Hooray for ORP!” Patrick swings Carrie around in a circle and kisses her. I feel a pang of sadness and bitterness. I look away, only to meet Nadya’s eye. She stares at me for a moment, and then I look away, wondering if she’s also thinking that that should be me and her, too. Not just Patrick and Carrie. 

“Well, shall we get to work?” says Rinaldi. “Let’s put some food out for the orangutans. And I have some paperwork to do, too.”

I raise my hand. “I can do that.”

“Nonsense,” says Rinaldi. “Mikha told me all about your demotion from orangutan rescuer to paper boy. Let me reassure you I can handle the paperwork on my own just fine. You just focus on nurturing the orangutans with your friends.” 

I feel myself beaming from ear to ear. “Thank you.” 

“No, thank  _ you.  _ Now let’s get to work. Be back in my office by five, and I’ll take you all out to dinner. My treat.”

“My dad is the best!” Mikha exclaims. 

“Yeah! Dinner!” Rasi and Eric jump up and down. 

In all the craziness that had unfurled over the past months, I forgot just how much I missed being around the orangutans. That was, after all, the whole reason I ventured off to Borneo in the first place. I wanted to work with the animals. Amy and Iwan had taken that from me. But now I’ve been given that chance again. And it feels pretty damn good. 

  
  
  



	17. Second Chances—Part 2

After the talk with Rinaldi, I wander the remnants of OPR, peering into Amy’s empty office. I picture the way things will be from now on. I picture Rinaldi in what used to be Amy’s seat, giving instructions instead of orders. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to walk into that office again without having gruesome flashbacks, but somehow, thinking of it as Rinaldi’s office rather than Amy’s office makes the bloody images of Iwan’s death start to fade a little bit already. I picture Sukarno being kind yet firm with the orangutans. I picture Rasi and Eric maturing in higher positions at work. I picture myself becoming friends with Carrie and Patrick. I picture Mikha, giddy as ever, working proudly alongside her father. And I picture Nadya—actually, I’m not sure what will become of me and her. 

“What are you thinking about, Duncan?” Mikha sidles up to me. 

“Mikha! I didn’t even see you come over.”

“I want checking on you. You disappear after my father agree to save business.” 

“Oh. I was just thinking about...everything, I guess. I can only imagine where things will go from here.”

Mikha raises her eyebrows. “It will be better with my father here.” 

“I know it will. But...Nadya?”

Mikha nods. “Oh, yes.” She sighs, not quite sure what to make of it herself. 

“I just can’t believe she didn’t stand up for me. Even Carrie and Patrick risked their jobs for me.” 

“You must be hurt,” says Mikha. “But Duncan, listen to me. Nadya always quiet. Standing up not really her thing. But I was surprised that she didn’t defend you.” 

“I just...I don’t understand anything that happened with her.”

Mikha gives me a sympathetic look. “Sometimes people hurt others when they don’t mean to. Look at me and Nate. He text me last night really sad. See.” She pulls out her phone, showing me a text conversation. I read the message she points at. 

_ Mikha, I’m really sorry for standing you up. I swear I was never trying to mess with you. The truth is, I have really bad social anxiety that always causes me to back out of plans with people. I know I hurt you, and I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to talk to me again. But you don’t know what it’s like being socially awkward and how hard it is for me, so trust me when I say I never wanted to hurt you in any way. I hope you’ll at least still talk to me, if nothing more, but if you won’t I don’t blame you. _

Mikha looks at me. “What do you think?”  
“Honestly? I believe him. It doesn’t make hurting you okay, but I know how it feels to be socially awkward. He seems like he’s genuinely sorry.”

“He tell me he don’t have friend,” says Mikha. “I’m not sure I can ever date him after what he do, but I always here for him. He just needs a friend, or at the very least someone who care. And I told him I do.” 

“That sounds about right.” 

“But you see, Duncan? Usually when someone hurt you, it say more about them than you. Nate not hurt me on purpose. And I know Nadya would _never_ hurt you on purpose.” 

“You know what, Mikha? You’re right. I guess my thinking is too black-and-white. Just because Nadya hurt me doesn’t mean she meant to. She loved me.” I sigh a little sadly at the past tense. “So I guess I have to figure out why she did what she did.” 

“Well, now’s your chance. I’m going to go find my dad.” Mikha points to Nadya, who is hanging around by the baby orangutans alone. 

“Guess that’s my cue. See you later, Mikha. And thank you.” 

Mikha gives me a hug before heading off to find her father. 

I’m so nervous it feels like my heart is about to jump out of my chest, but I force myself to approach Nadya. She looks up at me, her expression a mix of nervous and relieved.

“Duncan. I didn’t think you’d ever talk to me again.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

We stare at each other in silence for a moment. After studying her face for a while, I finally gather the courage to say, “Nadya, I’m really sorry I lied to you and the others about Sukarno. But I want to know why you broke up with me.” 

Nadya looks down and digs her toe into the ground. “I forgive you, Duncan. If you want to know the truth, I would have lied too in your position. You were only trying to respect your friend’s wishes. I just wish you felt like you could have trusted me with his secret.”

“I guess I should have known I could have.”

“I understand though.” She looks me in the eye and hesitates for a second before saying, “Anyway, that wasn’t really why I broke up with you.”  
I wasn’t expecting this. “Oh. Then what was the reason?”

“My father and I have very different values. He and my mother were both devout Muslims, but I’m just not really religious. I think he wants me to follow in my mother’s footsteps because I remind him of her. He often says so himself.”

I nod, urging her to go on. 

“I’m sure he wants me to marry a man who shares his religious beliefs, but I just don’t want to. I mean, if I happened to fall in love with a Muslim, I would marry him. But I could never marry someone based on religion, and that’s what many people do here. If you ask me, religion is a wonderful thing that gives people guidance, but creates terrible divisions between them. And I hate seeing that.”

“Nadya, you’re very brave for wanting to live your life by your own standards, even when there are many people who don’t agree with you.” 

“After my mother died,” Nadya continues, “my father pushed me harder than ever to practice Islam. I didn’t want to, but I did it to make him happy. He had already lost his wife. He had to have something go his way in this world. So I embraced—no,  _ practiced _ —the religion for him.”

“But now you’re unhappy. And that’s unfair to you. Why can’t your father see that?” 

“I don’t think he knows.”  
“I’m so sorry, Nadya.” I hold my arms out to her, and she closes the space between us in an instant, pulling me into a tight hug.

When she lets go I ask, “But what does your father have to do with your breaking up with me?”

“I was worried he wouldn’t approve of you, considering how overprotective he is. Of course I was angry that you lied to me, but the real reason I broke up with you was that I didn’t want to hurt you by pulling you into a relationship that would be extremely challenging, if my father had anything to do with it.”

So she hurt me trying not to hurt me. I turn over her words in my head, realizing that she only broke up with me because she cared about me, and figured she’d choose the course of action that would hurt me the least. 

“I appreciate your intentions, Nadya,” I say. “But how do you know your father would react that way? Of course, you know him better than anyone else, but that’s still just speculation.”

“I guess I just ran away because I got scared, then. I regretted breaking up with you as soon as I did it, but I was too afraid to face you and tell you the real reason I did it. I’m sorry, Duncan. I’m willing to give this another chance.”

“I don’t know, Nadya, we’ve both been through a lot lately,” I say. “ORP is in ruins, we just saw Iwan bleed to death on the floor…” I shudder at the memory, still very real in my mind.

Nadya’s eyes harden, too, and she flinches slightly. “Yes, I...I didn’t think in my life I would ever see something that horrible. I hope I never see anything like that again. I hope none of us do.” 

“I hope so, too.” 

“So no to the relationship?” Nadya’s expression is sad but resigned. 

I’m not sure what to say. I want to give our relationship another chance, too, but it will take a while for things to go back to the way they were. Plus I’m still not sure how her father will react to me. So I decide on a safer path. 

“I’d like that for us someday, too, Nadya. But I think we need some time to recover from what we have both been through. How about we just stay friends for now, and I’ll earn your father’s respect? Introducing me to him as your boyfriend might overwhelm him, but showing him I’m a friend who cares about you might open his eyes.”

“I like that idea, Duncan. So do you forgive me? Are we friends again?”

“You bet,” I say, giving her a tight squeeze. She giggles and squeezes me right back. 


	18. Window Into the Past (and future)

“Ready to go, Sukarno?” I ask my now-civilized forest friend.

“Oh, you bet I am.” Sukarno takes one last look around the lobby of the stuffy motel and sniffs. “I was going crazy in here. I hope your friend Rasi’s house isn’t this over-the-top.”

“Not even close.” I smile. “Rasi prides himself on being extremely low-maintenance.” 

Sukarno heads for the door, but I pull him back. “You gotta check out first,” I explain. I lead him to the front desk and say to the host, “My friend is scheduled to check out at noon.”

The host types furiously away at his computer, and after a flurry of keyboard clicks, he says, “Two hundred rupiah, please.”

I retrieve the money from my wallet and plunk it on the desk.

The host takes the cash. “You’re all set, sir.”

“Thank you,” I say. Then I turn to Sukarno. “Now we can leave.” 

As we are walking to the parking lot to meet Rasi, Sukarno says, “I can’t believe soon I’ll be making... _ money _ , too. The things I have done because of you that I swore I’d never do, Duncan.” 

“It’s funny how friends change you that way. I used to hate people before I met my work friends. And there were times I seriously considered coming to live with you in the forest, you know. Work was just getting too stressful. But I’m glad you’re moving in with me and Rasi. And that you agreed to work with us at ORP. I just know you’ll be great with the orangutans.”

“They are very much like humans,” says Sukarno. “Without the intelligence to be so terrible to each other.”

“I’m not sure I agree with that,” I laugh, thinking of Putra and Dominic getting into fights over females, of little Indah biting Iwan in the neck, causing him to bleed out in seconds.

I spot Rasi’s car pulling into the parking lot. “That’s him,” I say. Sukarno follows me to Rasi’s car, and I open the passenger door for him. 

“What do I do now?” asks Sukarno. 

Rasi’s eyes widen, but I smile knowingly and say, “You just sit down in the seat. Oh, and put your seatbelt on.”

“Is that this thing right here?” Sukarno gets in the car and tugs at the seatbelt, frowning at the buckle. 

I laugh. “Here.” I buckle him in. 

“Interesting,” says Sukarno. 

“What’s good, Rasi?” I say, hopping into the backseat.

“Oh, spent my whole day off sleeping in. Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true. Eric, Mikha, and Nadya are all back at the house, waiting to help move Sukarno in.” 

“Oh, they don’t have to,” Sukarno says.

“Nonsense,” says Rasi. “They’re happy to help. And very excited to see you.” 

“Wow,” says Sukarno. 

Minutes later we pull into the driveway. When we go in the house, all the lights are out, and it is totally silent. 

“That’s weird,” says Rasi. “They couldn’t have left without a—”

“SURPRISE!!!!” Mikha, Nadya, and Eric all pop out from under the tablecloth, each with a wrapped gift in their hands. 

“WHOA!!” Sukarno makes a break for the living room couch, cowering into a ball behind it.

I hurry after him. “It’s okay, Sukarno. It’s just my friends!”

“Oh.” Sukarno gets out from behind the couch. 

“You guys! You scared him!” Rasi chides Mikha, Nadya, and Eric. 

“We’re sorry!” says Mikha for all of them. 

“We didn’t mean to scare you,” adds Nadya. 

“Have you eaten yet?” asks Eric. Sukarno shakes his head no. 

“We have gift for you,” Mikha says to Sukarno. “Is that okay?” 

“You didn’t need to do that,” says Sukarno. “But thank you.” He takes Mikha’s gift and tears off the paper, revealing an iPhone XS. 

“Wow, this is...something,” says Sukarno. “Thank you, Mikha. You will have to show me how to use this. I never saw such a thing until Duncan showed me his.” 

“Gladly!” laughs Mikha. 

Eric holds an envelope out to Sukarno, who opens it. Inside are three gift cards to the restaurant Rinaldi took us to on his first day as the manager of ORP.

“Is this like money?” Sukarno asks. 

Eric nods. “Yep. You use it at a restaurant to buy food.”  
“Well, thank you.” 

Nadya hands Sukarno her gift next. Inside the box are three pairs of plain jeans and three comfortable-looking, fresh T-shirts. 

Sukarno smiles at Nadya. “Well, I guess I’ll be needing these fairly often now that I’m civilized, won’t I? Thank you, Nadya.”

Nadya replies, “You are most welcome.”

I meet Nadya’s eye, and we smile at each other, her smile fond and caring, mine appreciative. Of all my friends, she was the one I was afraid would resent Sukarno since I neglected my relationship with her to keep him a secret, but she ended up being the one who was the most sensitive to his needs, and I really appreciated her unfailing ability to identify and respect those needs, just like she had done for me when I had first arrived at ORP. 

“Shall we set Sukarno up in the room?” asks Rasi. 

The six of us head to Rasi’s tiny bedroom, which is going to be very cramped with me, Rasi, and Sukarno in there. Rasi glances around the room and frowns, trying to figure out how to fit three people into the small space. 

“Why don’t we move some stuff into the living room?” suggests Nadya. 

“That’s a good idea, Nadya!” Rasi says. “Everyone, start gathering stuff to move into the living room. I’ll rearrange the dresser so that we each get one drawer to put our clothes in, and then I’ll come join you guys.” 

“I think these can go,” says Eric, picking up Rasi’s most prized collection of large, expensive hand flags from what has to be every single country in the world. 

Rasi panics. “Put those down, Eric!” He yanks the bundles of flags out of Eric’s hands and places them safely back where they belong. “How would you feel if I took your collection of model planes?” 

“Don’t you threaten my planes!” Eric punches Rasi’s arm. 

“Oh, great, here we go again,” says Mikha as Rasi and Eric break into a full-on wrestling match. 

We start moving stuff into the living room. Ten minutes and a lot of “Hey!”s and “Ow!”s later, Rasi and Eric join us. The living room quickly fills up, and soon the only way to make more room is to push the bookshelf into the corner. 

“Great, this thing is heavy,” I say. I take one end of the bookshelf, prepared to push it towards the wall, and ask, “Anyone wanna help me?” 

“I gotcha,” says Rasi, taking the other end, and together we start to wrestle the bookshelf towards the wall, when I trip over something.

“Whoa!” I exclaim, crashing into the bookshelf, immediately checking that I didn’t flatten Rasi into the wall. 

“Are you okay, Duncan?” Nadya asks, concern in her voice. 

“I’m fine, thanks, Nadya,” I say. “What did I even trip over?”  
Mikha picks a book up off of the ground and holds it up. “This.”

I stare at the book, which I suddenly realize is a photo album. “Wait, let me see that,” I say. 

Mikha hands me the photo album. “I remember this,” I say. “One night, when I came back in after visiting Sukarno, it was dark and I tripped and fell into the bookshelf, knocking the photo album behind it. I figured it wasn’t important.” 

I open the photo album and page through pictures and pictures of a little blonde girl and dark-haired boy. There are pictures of them at a birthday party with frosting all over their faces; finger painting and smearing it all over each other; wearing backpacks and smiling proudly into the camera; walking alongside a beach with their arms around each other. Then there are pictures of the same boy and girl as young adults, including a picture of the blonde woman in a beautiful empty park, surrounded by the same dark-haired man on the other side and another man holding her hand on the other. The man holding the woman’s hand has my hair and nose. As soon as I realize who the people in this photo are, all three of them become blurry. 

“Are you okay, Duncan?” Nadya takes my hand. 

I stare at her face and blink, but am unable to make it not blurry. “This picture is of my dead mom and uncle and my dad who left before I ever got to meet him.”

“Oh, Duncan.” Nadya throws her arms around me. 

“You must be sad, Duncan,” says Sukarno. “You must miss them. I miss my parents, too.”

“This entire album must be of my mom and Uncle Jacob,” I say, starting to page through the album again. 

“Look, there’s a letter,” says Mikha, pointing to a piece of yellow notepad paper with blue scribbles all over it. 

I take the letter out. “That’s Uncle Jacob’s handwriting.” I peek at the top of the paper and see the name Emily. “This letter is to my mom.”

“Do you want to read it?” asks Nadya. 

I think for a moment. “Yes, but alone. And in the forest.” 

“Okay.” Nadya gives me one last hug. “Take all the time you need.”

“We’ll wait for you,” says Eric. 

“Let us know if you want to talk about anything when you come back,” adds Rasi. 

“Yes. You always have us; you never have to be alone,” Mikha reassures me. 

“The forest is the perfect place to read that letter,” says Sukarno. 

“Thanks, guys.” I give my friends a watery smile and head out the door with the letter in hand, taking it into the lush safety and serenity of the forest. 

************

The walk from Rasi’s house into the forest seems like hours. I am itching with every cell in my body to find out what this letter says right now, but I just couldn’t read it in front of all my friends. I need to be alone and at home, and for me home is out in nature, in the forest. I may have grown to love the people in my life and conformed my man-hating forest friend into a civilized member of society, but I will never feel as completely safe and at peace as I do when I am in the forest. 

Twenty minutes later, I must be acres deep in the forest, yet it feels like I will never be deep enough. At last I come to the conclusion that I am just afraid to read the letter, though I’m not sure why. I finally decide to bite the bullet, and search for a place to sit down. 

_ This will do _ , I say to myself as I spot a large rock. I sit down on the rock and unfold the letter to read it. 

_ Emily,  _

_ I don’t know if you’ll ever get this letter, because I don’t know if I’ll ever have the courage to send it. But some things need to be said nonetheless.  _

_ Emily, you need to leave Chris. What has he ever done for you? All he does is sap you of what little money you work your ass off for on his gambling addiction. Then he gets drunk and beats you around. He has serious issues, Emily. He’s no good for you.  _

_ I know our parents have been treating you poorly, too. They want you to leave Chris, too, but for their own selfish reasons. They don’t like that he is of an even lower class than we are. They want you to marry a wealthy man so they can mooch off of his money and make a name for themselves in the acting business. The things people do for money, I swear. But I know you have never fancied the characters of wealthy men, and that you are above marrying someone just because of their social class or money. But just because Chris isn’t loaded and blinded by wealth doesn’t mean he’s automatically good. Just like all rich people aren’t automatically bad. You need to stop having so many rules about what makes people good and bad, Emily. You’d have much healthier relationships with people if you only let go of those rules.  _

_ But I suppose I’m one to talk. I’ve never been good with relationships of any sort. You are the only person who has ever stuck by my side, the only person I have ever really connected with. The few girlfriends I have had have all said I am too detached, that I am impossible to be with because I don’t voice my needs. All my castmates in theatre brush me aside like I am nothing. I suppose I really am nothing in the way of acting, singing, and dancing, but that doesn’t give them the right to ignore me as a person just because I don’t fit in. I’m getting out of that business, Emily. This is my last show. I don’t care what our parents say anymore. Languages are what I love. I’ve studied Indonesian and Spanish behind our parents’ backs on my own since I was thirteen, and plan to learn even more languages and work as an interpreter. That is where I know I’ll be most at home. And even then I’ll probably never meet the right woman or have the friends I’ve always wanted. I never know what to say to people, and have no idea how to read them. I’m good at grammar and verbs, Emily, not body language. I’ve gotten rid of my own people rules, but I still don’t know how to read people. I feel like I’m trapped in my own mind, Emily, and that is what’s keeping me from building the connections that I really want with people. _

_ I’m begging you, leave Chris. You think he is the only man who could ever love you, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He has conditioned you to think that so he can keep you under his thumb. He knows he’s dragging you down and you’re too good for him. He’s afraid of you leaving. But instead of telling you that and changing his behavior, he just beats you down into staying with him.  _

_ Again, Emily, I don’t know if I’ll ever have the courage to say any of these things to you. I don’t want you to be angry with me for telling you to leave Chris and cut me off instead. I know he’s your whole world. But believe me, Emily, when I say you deserve a far better world than the one you have.  _

_ Jacob _

So Uncle Jacob wanted my mom to leave my dad. My abusive, alcoholic, gambling dad who abandoned me and my mom. Had Uncle Jacob sent that letter and had Mom listened to him, she could still be alive now. And they could have helped each other to change the mindsets they were stuck in and build the lives they wanted. But had he sent the letter and had she listened, I would never have existed. 

I’m not sure which scenario I prefer. 

My heart aches for my mom. She thought my dad was her whole world. She was so blinded by love for him, and so beaten down by him, she couldn’t see that she could turn her life around, that her brother was there, willing to help her. But Uncle Jacob was partly responsible, too. He was there for her, but he didn’t let her know that. He knew how much my dad meant to my mom, and was afraid that suggesting she leave my dad would anger her so much she would cut him off instead. I finally understand what Uncle Jacob meant when he said to me long ago at Mom’s grave that communication was key unless I wanted to end up with a lot of regrets. He was too afraid communicate with Mom, and she suffered because of it. My heart hurts for Uncle Jacob, too; he was surrounded by people, but trapped in his own mind and lonely. He was a people person who didn’t know how to socialize. I can’t imagine anything more painful than going through life surrounded by people you long to connect with but never do because you just simply don’t know how. I’m glad that in the last years of his life he at least had me, a nephew who loved him and looked up to him and also didn’t understand why people are the way they are. 

And to think I could have ended up equally as isolated and wouldn’t have even minded it, had I not met my friends. I would have missed out on the blessings in my life that I am more grateful for than anything in the world, and would have never even known what it felt like to have them. How it felt to have such loyal friends who had my back. How it felt to love somebody so much you swore you wanted to spend the rest of your life with them. How it felt to turn a human-hating man into one who was finally learning to stop hating people and start connecting with them. If only I could have helped Uncle Jacob. If only I could have helped Mom. 

I guess the only thing I can do now is nurture and appreciate the connections I have now. I make a promise to myself to help Sukarno connect with people just as I would have helped Uncle Jacob, to help Nadya feel secure and confident in introducing me to her father as I would have tried to help Mom feel a spark of hope when all she wanted to do was give up. To honor the memory of Mom and Uncle Jacob by being the very best friend I can possibly be to the people I love. 

Will there ever be more between me and Nadya? Will I be able to overcome my shyness and make friends with Carrie and Patrick? If we get new employees, will any of them become my friends too? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. But what I do know is that nothing in life is certain, and that I have to let go of the desire for control. People want control over situations so they don’t get screwed over and hurt by someone else, but it’s just simply impossible to control everything, and you’ll only exhaust yourself trying. In the end, some relationships and friendships will work out, and some won’t, but that’s just life. And I finally start to realize that as long as I focus on building the life I want for myself, being out in the forest with the orangutans, I will be okay. 

Feeling more at peace than ever, I fold the letter up carefully and make my way through the forest back home to my friends. 

  
  



End file.
